


Lee Harper

by OneTrueStudent



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-21 01:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneTrueStudent/pseuds/OneTrueStudent
Summary: I wrote this years ago and wrote myself right into a big hole. Never found a way out. I think it's some of my best work ever, so it is published here. You'll find these people in a lot of my other stuff.





	1. Part 1

Chapter 1

The first time I met a real vampire was in the Aquatania Hotel in the great city of Celephais. The shadows were lengthening and meeting across the glass skyway that rings the forty fourth floor. There was still enough light from the summer sun to warrant sunglasses, and it was amusing to see tourists and business travelers moving about with darkened glasses inside. I found room 4458 and knocked a few times.

There were some noises, and then the door opened a crack. The interior of the room was too dark to let me see either the furniture or the occupant.

“Yes?” he asked. By the sound of it he was behind the door.

“Lee Harper,” I introduced myself. “I'm looking for Torin Atkinson to discuss your portrait.”

“Come in,” he ordered impatiently. 

I stepped forward into blackness and the door clicked shut behind me. For a moment I was blind.

A match snapped and flared. A bobbing flame caught a candle wick and steadied, giving me my first glimpse of him. I could smell the burned phosphorus.

Mr Atkinson was tall and dressed in well tailored dark slacks and shirt. He was wearing a tie, but had it undone and hanging from his neck. In the shadows his hair and eyes were black.

“I just had my eyes dilated,” he began, lighting several other candles. “I'm sorry about the dark, but I can't stand the light right now. I am Mr Atkinson, and it's a pleasure to meet you.” He took my hand in a good grip, and we shook.

“Oh.” That seemed reasonable, if odd, so I didn't give it another thought. “The candles?”

“The overhead lights are blinding,” he explained. “They should have dimmer switches, but don't. I never thought to buy extra lamps or lights, so now all I have is the candles.”

I had never thought about that. I considered it as he lit about a dozen small candles about the room. When they were all burning, he dropped the matches and turned back to me.

“You don't have any other lamps at all?” I asked.

“Not here. I used the fluorescents, and never gave it a second thought. Besides, I'm rarely here anyway.”

“Are you allowed to have all these?” I asked, indicating the candles.

“I didn't ask,” he replied. “Besides, it should just be for the day. I'm sorry about the darkness, but this is as much light as I can stand. Please, have a seat.”

I took the indicated chair and made myself comfortable. He had a seat, and we sat across a table littered with papers, pencils, and a calculator. 

“So, the portrait,” I said. I paused, and he began.

“Yes. That. The long and the short of it is my mother has decided she wants paintings, not pictures, paintings of all the family. Portraits, head and shoulders.” He made boxing motions about his face as he said that.

“It's called a head shot.” I offered.

“A head shot,” he repeated. “Anyway, it seemed like a waste of time to me, so I put her off for a while, but this morning she caught me on the phone and extracted a promise from me that I would get it done immediately. I tried the optometry excuse, but your name came up and your ad states that you are willing to make house calls, hence you're here. I know this is not very good lighting conditions, but I swore I would start the process.”

It was at this point I noticed a peculiar odor, very faint, that caught the edge of my attention. I could not place it. It was almost undetectable behind the smell of sulfur from the matches.

“Well, there are a couple of different things we can do.” I lifted my briefcase and put it on the table between us, opening it as we spoke. “We can take your pictures now, and I can return to my studio, but that does require a lot of light. What are your turnaround time requirements?”

“As soon as possible,” he replied. He ran his hand through his hair and let it hang through his fingers. “How long will the actual painting take?”

“Between a few days and a few weeks.”

“A few weeks?” he echoed, exasperated.

“It can.”

“I thought it only took a few hours. Don't you sit for them? Doesn't sitting for a portrait only take a few hours?”

“Yes,” I replied seriously. “But I can hardly create a good enough likeness of you here, in the dark. If you want to come back to my studio, I can do the painting in a few hours. It will then take a little longer to fix the paint and mount it.”

He pursed his lips and frowned, thinking. “Could it be done by morning?”

That would require an all night session. Still, business had been slow, and insomnia usually kept me up anyway. “I could do a rush job on it.” I don't like the financial end of my business. I really don't like telling customers it would cost more than the listed price. If he got mad and refused, I'd have to do the job at the old rate anyway. I needed the money.

“But that would be more expensive, right?”

“Yes,” I said apologetically.

He named a figure. I blinked twice, slowly. 

“That would be fine,” I said when I found my voice.

“Let me explain something to you. I'm not trying to be insulting, and I'm sorry I'm making you work in such odd situations. But I have got to get this woman out of my hair.” He looked impatient and disoriented, but was remaining civil by an act of will. “I have a lot of respect for your work. I looked at the samples on your website and liked what I saw. Especially Evil Spirits. I thought that was a masterpiece. So please don't take offense at these conditions. But I have got to get that woman out of my hair,” he said again, adding more emphasis. 

“I understand,” I said as pacifyingly as I could. I was all ready doing a mental inventory of what I had at my studio. I would need more fixative, but the store was still open, and I was fairly sure at least one of my credit cards was not maxed out.

“What?” he asked insistently. “Is there a problem?” He must have read my expression.

“Oh, nothing. I'll just need to go get a few supplies first,” I assured him. “Nothing that should delay the work.”

“Here.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. It was fat with money. He opened it and grabbed a few bills towards the middle, barely glancing at them. He handed me the wad. “Go buy whatever you need. I'll be over just after sunset.”

I looked down at my hands and incredulously counted it. My credit cards suddenly became paid off.

“I appreciate it, but I don't know-”

“Lee, listen to me. Do you mind if I call you Lee?”

“Not at all.”

“Lee, in case you didn't notice, I'm rich. Very. I'm at the point where I don't care about money. What I care about is my mother. Now, do whatever it is you need to do to get this done by morning. Don't worry about money. I can pay you in cash.”

“Are you a drug dealer?” It slipped out of my mouth before my brain could stop it.

Torin burst out laughing, a tense pressured sound that sounded like steam spewing from a boiler. He laughed for a while, and his shoulders relaxed and face smoothed. Lines of worry lightened. 

“Lee, what kind of shoes are you wearing?”

“Tennis shoes,” I replied timidly.

“I thought so. Did you ever wonder how they get the the synthetic leather they use in tennis shoes?”

“No.”

“Let me tell you. Virtually everybody uses something called the Virtuli Drip Method, which they lease the patent for from me. Do you know how much the lease is?”

“No.”

He named a figure so astronomical that I didn't really understand the point of having that much money. Then he glanced at his watch and back at me.

“After you've gotten everything you need, run to a library and look up the Virtuli Drip Method. Do a little research if you're worried. Just be ready to paint at sunset.”

“Don't worry. I'll be ready.”

“Good,” he stood up and lead me to the door, firmly shaking my hand again. “This is my card. Feel free to call me for any reason.”

“I will. Thank you.” 

He smiled without showing much of his teeth, and patted me on the back. “No, thank you. You have no idea what you're saving me from. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to run back to my room before you open that door. Even that little bit of light is painful to me.”

I assured him that was fine with me. If he wanted to lock himself in the bathroom while I talked to him through the door it would be fine with me. I thanked him again and watched him enter his bedroom. I was watching carefully because I certainly had no intent of opening that door until he was ready. Therefor I caught a very good look at the pile of bandages, most of which appeared to be used, on the table inside his room. Suddenly I realized what I had been smelling. It was blood, very faint.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Certainly,” he called as he shut the door behind him. “Go ahead now.”

I didn't think he was answering my question as I intended, but I did not want to overstay my welcome. I let myself out and firmly shut the door behind me. I made sure it clicked loudly. I made it about ten steps the hallway before I got my phone out.

“What?” answered the fat man on the other end.

“Mr Gallis?”

“Yes.”

“This is Lee Harper. I've got the rent.”

“How much of it?” his voice, hard to recognize over the bad connection, still managed to convey distrust.

“All of it.”

“Good.”

“Will you be around for a few hours?” If I went straight to the art store, I could be there in just under two hours.

“For you, I'll make a point of it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gallis.”

“Don't thank me. Pay me,” and he hung up.

He was much nicer than he let on. I put my phone away and entered the elevator.

When we met in his office he took the cash, counted it twice, and grunted while he chewed the slobbery end of a dark cigar. He hacked up a wad of spit and sent it with expert aim out the window. I cringed for any pedestrians below. “Well, I can wave the late fees this time, since it's in cash.”

“Thank you.” 

“This is all the thanks I need,” he replied, flicking the wad of bills with his forefinger. “Remember, next month is still due in two weeks.”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Good.”

“And now, if you'll excuse me-”

“I will. Get out.”

I did. 

When Torin appeared for the sitting, I was waiting for him in my studio. Given his time constraints, which he mentioned again, we skipped the small talk and I had him seated in minutes. I could see his pupils were indeed dilated. They were huge, meeting the whites of his eyes directly and showing no iris. I had carefully arranged the lights ahead of time, using a few tricks I'd learned to give his face a sharp contrast without illuminating it very well. I'd warned him that it would make him seem serious and possibly grim, but he waved off such concerns. I set to work.

By midnight I was done. He looked it over and approved. We sat for a little time talking while it set, and I could see him relax a little. He glanced around my room and managed to find a few things to compliment, an impressive effort that secretly amused me. I lived in an unadulterated shithole, with exposed wiring and bowing walls. I think the building had been condemned at some point. Regardless, several hours before dawn he bade me a very warm and grateful adieu and shook my hand at the door, his head shot carefully wrapped for travel under his arm.

“You have no idea how much I appreciate this,” he told me. “You went above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Oh, it's no problem. If anyone else in your family needs a head shot done, please mention my name to them.” It is very important to ask for more business. 

He sent me a calm, calculating look. Time had not reduced the dilated look of his eyes, and his glance was dark and penetrating. “Would you like me to send my relatives to your door?” 

“Yes, please,” I replied. There was something odd about the way he asked that question, but to be honest, he was a very odd man. “I would be happy to work for them.”

“Very well. I'll remember that. Good evening, Mr Lee Harper.”

“Good evening, Mr Atkinson.”

When he was down the stairs I turned and shut the door behind me.

Now it all makes sense, of course. But please remember, that at the time he was simply another eccentric client in this city of lunatics. I had a client once who wanted a sketch of himself standing at the center of a pentagram scrawled in goat's blood. That one had also paid late and argued about the price. 

The heat broke in early August, and there was an unusual period where the weather was exceptionally cold. It abated slightly in September, but returned with a vengeance in October. I wished the scientists who preached global warming would make up their minds when I went outside to see ice covering the sidewalks. Still, business was beginning to build towards the rush around the New Year's holidays, when I set off towards one of the art supply stores I frequented. I had not yet passed beyond the front of the building when someone called my name from behind.

“Harper! Lee Harper!”

I turned and looked. Immediately I saw her.

Walking towards me was perhaps the most threatening woman I have ever met. She was tall, perhaps taller than I, fair skinned and dark haired, and dressed in a black suit with matching shoes. She walked like a dancer or a fencer, smooth but purposeful and direct. Once I had made eye contact with her, she smiled. I froze and waited.

“Lee Harper, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Carolyn White.”

“Good morning,” I replied. We shook hands. 

“Torin Atkinson commissioned a piece by you several months ago. When I decided to have some similar work done, I asked him about it, and he mentioned your name. Are you interested?”

“Very.”

“Splendid. May I buy you lunch? I starved, and we can discuss the details over something to eat.”

“Certainly.”

She pivoted and gently placed a hand behind my back, guiding me in the direction she had come. I could smell her perfume, and it reminded me of strawberries. She was a very strong willed woman.

“Torin speaks very highly of you, by the way. He reports that you saved him from his mother's wrath like an angel. Indeed, his mother was singularly mollified in her irritation at what she considered her son's failure in one of his duties. She's quite enamored of your work and prominently displays it at her house. That's where I first saw it.”

“And you liked it?”

“If I didn't, I wouldn't be here commissioning you,” she replied. 

“Of course.”

We stopped at her car, an imported luxury model that had no business being in the part of town we were. She unlocked it electronically and then held the passenger side door open for me in a curious reversal of gender roles. I climbed in.

“Ludus,” came a voice like breaking rocks from the back seat.

I twisted in my seat and looked over my shoulder. There was a troll of a man, probably six and a half feet tall and at least two hundred and fifty pounds. This would be the first time I ever met a hired goon, and unlike Torin he looked exactly like what he was. “Ludus Estenmere,” he said, and offered his hand, and I understood that he had been introducing himself.

“Lee Harper.” I took his hand and squeeze it politely.

Ludus scowled and clenched his hand on mine. Carolyn was opening her door when I smiled back at Ludus. I had played this game before.

I suppose I should tell you all a bit about myself. You know my name and my occupation already. I graduated from the Northshore Institute of Sacred Geometry three years ago. Contrary to its name, Northshore is one of the best art schools in the world. While I was at Northshore I met every manner of artist, both savant and hack, student, and varieties of pretentious moron that only occur in that field. 

Northshore is located on the very north coast of Celephais, hence its name, and the north shore is mostly rocky bluff above a thin rock staggered beach that was composed of black sand. The bluffs rang in height from fifty to five hundred feet, are laced with stairways and construction projects from the architecture school, and are recessed from the beach just enough that the rocks stay dry most of the year. Naturally, elements of the student body do a lot of climbing.

Before I came to Phi and Northshore, I had been raised down south in the lower ranges of the Nirmo Mountains. I got into climbing pretty seriously. Now I don't do nearly as much as I did then, but admission to a pile of rocks is free and that's attractive in its own right. For conditioning drills, I hold the top of my door frames with two or three fingers on each hand and do pull ups. Besides, it gives me something to do when I can't sleep at night. I've got a good, healthy grip.

I clenched my hand over Ludus's and squeezed until I passed the point where boards normally ripped out of the ceiling. Lupus first looked confused, then surprised, and finally agonized as I bent his hand into a ball in mine. The first of his knuckles popped like a cork.

Ludus burst out laughing then and relaxed his hand. I finished with a mild shake, giving the impression that was the only thing that had been happening, and released him. Ludus took his hand in the other and sat back in his seat, holding his injured meat hook and chortling quietly. I turned back to the front.

Carolyn was watching me levelly with an amused expression. “I see you've met Ludus. You two should get along splendidly.”

“Hopefully.”

Carolyn backed the car out and entered traffic. She got immediately back to business, a trait of hers I would come to find wonderful when I first started meeting nobility. “As you may know, portraits are coming into vogue as status symbols. Apparently, if you can blow a large wad of cash on a hand painting of yourself instead of a photograph, your business must be doing well. My colleagues are wasting their money in buckets on inept pretentious idiots who draw impressions on the same level as retarded infants. They probably suck their toes as well.”

I could think of a few of those individuals off the top of my head. I nodded.

“I want you to do a series for me. Various poses and positions, I'm sure you're more familiar with the specifics than I am. What is important is that these will be duplicated and thus must be easily copied without serious loss of detail. Can you do it?”

“Easily,” I replied. “How many would you like?”

“Seven or eight. We can work out the specifics later.”

“What is your time line like?”

Carolyn turned to me and gave me a wry smile. “You mean, do I need them all tomorrow?”

“Please don't,” I replied. 

“Don't worry. There's no hurry.”

“Good.”

“Secondly, I may want revisions or extra pieces later. I want our contract to have a reasonable level of flexibility, so if I like the first round, I'd like to put you on retainer.”

That seemed reasonable, and I told her so.

“Good. We're here.”

Here seemed to be a parking garage. We all climbed out, took an elevator up to a lobby, and Carolyn gave her name to the maitre'd at a small place. 

Over the next few weeks I saw quite a bit of Carolyn White. At first she came by twice to discuss the particulars of the contract, each time taking me out to eat. Each time Ludus stayed in the car. I think in the first month I knew him he said nothing after he introduced himself. When I bid him hello he nodded seriously and then returned to an impassive silence. His body language was clearly friendly, but he just never spoke. Carolyn never left us alone so the silence never grew uncomfortable. When I asked her about him she described him as an 'associate' which I took to mean body guard. The etiquette seemed to be ignore him, so I did.

After we had nailed down the particulars of the deal, she asked to sit for each drawing instead of being photographed. She let me take two pictures of her, but asked I only use them for lighting and wardrobe research. I was more than happy to oblige.

Two weeks after our initial meeting she called me and asked me to join her for a purely social dinner. We dined at the Glass House, a five star restaurant at the top of the Morehouse building. She did not let me see the check, but estimating from the menu our meal cost about what my rent did.

When we were leaving she asked me, “Would you like to drive? I think the wine went to my head.”

“Please,” I replied.

The car, an Illusion, purred under my hands. Driving was like a dream.

That night we left Ludus in the car, as always, and went up to my studio.

I decided to cast the dice.

“Thank you,” I said as we stood in my kitchen, which doubled as a living room, bedroom, studio, and climbing gym. “I had a wonderful time.”

“Good.” She smiled at me.

We were standing only a few feet apart. No guts, no glory, no girl, I thought and leaned forward to kiss her.

Carolyn turned aside and stopped me cold with a hand against my chest. I didn't know what to say.

“Lee, don't ever do that again.”

“I'm sorry. I thought-”

“Don't be sorry. Just don't ever do that again.”

“Yes, Carolyn.” I almost called her ma'am.

When she walked out I thought I would never see her again. Instead she called me two days later.

“Good morning, Lee,” she said over the phone. It was an hour after sunset.

“Carolyn!” I was overjoyed. “I didn't expect to talk to you.”

“Of course you're going to talk to me. You still have to finish my paintings.”

Ah, I thought. This is the let's keep it professional call.

“I understand. The third is almost done,” I replied. “It should finish curing by tomorrow.”

“I'd like to come see it then.”

“Please do. What time?”

“Eleven AM.”

“Everything will be ready.”

She arrived two minutes early. We examined the work, a full size portrait that I had been working on for the last three nights. “It's perfect,” she said.

That's because you are, I thought regretfully. “Thank you.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really,” I lied. “I just ate.”

“Lee, do you remember what I told you three days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Never forget that, but don't exaggerate it. And never lie to me. I know you haven't eaten.”

“Carolyn, what exactly do you want from me?”

“I want you to go to Stephano's with me.”

“Okay,” I caved. “Let me change.”

“You look fine the way you are.”

The way I was was paint splattered and exhausted from an insomniac night. 

“Stephano's has a dress code,” I argued.

Carolyn shot me a look that could bore holes in steel. “You are with me. If anyone says anything, I'll talk to them.”

“All right, then.”

She slipped her arm into mine and lead me out, pausing only to let me lock up behind us.

Ludus was in the back seat, as usual.

“'Morning,” I greeted him.

Ludus nodded back like I had said something deep. Carolyn got in the driver's side.

Stephano's was a restaurant for the rich, the famous, and the royal family. The maitre'd looked at me when Carolyn lead us in, but glanced at her face and said nothing. He escorted us to a booth in the rear, and we sat. Ludus was still in the car, as usual.

“Why do you bring me to places like this?” I asked when he'd left. “I don't fit in.”

“You are with me. I fit in perfectly.”

Which was, of course, true. Carolyn could have been royalty herself. I'd asked a friend of mine who followed such things and showed her a picture, but she told me my employer and lunch date was not connected to any of the noble families in either Phi or any place else. 

“But you didn't let me even change. I could look better than this.”

“Lee, I brought you here because I wanted to eat here, and I brought you now because I wanted to eat now.” Carolyn wasn't being rude. She just ignored social gestures she considered empty. “Besides, why do you care what they think?”

“I'm an artist. I care about appearances. It's my job.”

She looked at me for a long time before replying, “Do they make you uncomfortable?”

“A little.”

“Would you like them all to leave?”

“You could do that? Make them all leave?”

“Easily.”

“Carolyn, who are you?”

“Carolyn White. You're Lee Harper. This is Stephano's Restaurant. Water is still wet, the sky blue.”

The waiter arrived and we ordered. There were no prices on the menu.

“You know, you're powerfully sarcastic when you put your mind to it.”

“You're right. I do know.”

“Then let's talk about something else. They're fine.” I waved my hand to mean everyone else in the place.

“When you were a senior at Northshore, you placed second at the Phi Open climbing tournament. Your final ascent was a 5-13b solo. Why didn't you use ropes?”

If she expected me to surprised that she knew that she should not have casually claimed to be able to throw a dozen people who made more money then my neighborhood combined out of a restaurant.

“I can solo a little faster than being top roped and much faster than leading. Besides, I knew I wouldn't fall.”

“Good.” She smiled again.

“You did a background check on me?”

“Exhaustive. Before I contacted you I had to be sure you didn't have an embarrassing history.”

“What did you find?”

“You were born in a village called Tossend, population seven hundred thirty two at the time. Currently nine hundred and eighty three. Your mother died when you were three from a lightning strike. I'm sorry. Your father died three years ago of pancreatic cancer. I'm sorry about that too. The hospital where you were born and he died was called Clark Regional. Lee, I know almost everything about you.”

“Well, damn.”

“What I don't know is what it felt like to solo a sixty foot 5-13b in the final of the Phi Open climbing tournament when you were a graduating senior. Please tell me about it.”

There is only one thing to say to that. “Fantastic. I'd already lost first on points, so all that was left was to enjoy every move. About halfway up was the crux, a five foot dyno.” If Carolyn knew almost everything, something I was perfectly prepared to accept, she already knew that meant throwing myself up the rock face with one chance at grabbing a tricky hold with my off hand. “I was a little over forty feet up, so I did not need to worry about missing. If I missed it would be bad, and I had no intention of letting that happen. I was a little concerned that it might drain too much of my energy, but I figured I could handle it. And I did.”

That afternoon when she walked me to my door, she paused outside. “Remember,” she warned me. “What's off limits is off limits.”

I wanted to say I understood, but I didn't, and she'd told me not to lie. Instead I nodded. 

“But don't read anything into that I didn't say. I had a wonderful evening.”

“So did I.”

“Call me the day after tomorrow. We'll go out again.”

“Some place I don't feel like a poor relation?”

“We can go to Don's House of Gluttony if you like.”

“I think we can do a little better than that.”

“Then you decide. Tell me on Tuesday.”

I really wanted to kiss her. I wanted to touch her hand, face, or armpit on the off chance I'd figure out what was going on. That's a lie. You know why I wanted to touch her. All I said was, “I will.”

“I'm looking forward to it. Good bye, Lee.”

“See you later, Carolyn.”

“Yes,” she replied. “You will.” And she turned and walked away.

“And say goodbye to Ludus for me!” I called after her. She vanished down the stairs without answering. 

“What in the name of Morpheus is going on?” I asked the god when I'd entered my room and shut the door behind me. He didn't answer either.

“We're going climbing,” I told her over the phone. I wasn't used to this way of absolutely enforcing my will, but I felt it necessary in this case. If she couldn't handle it she was a control-obsessed psycho, and I needed out now. “The bluffs by Northshore should be vacant tomorrow morning, so we will have the place to ourselves.”

She was silent a moment. “Is there anything I need to bring?”

“I have all the ropes and equipment we'll need. Do you have shoes?”

“Is there a special kind of climbing shoe?”

“Yes. Any outdoors store will have them. When you're looking for a pair to buy, pick the smallest ones you can fit your feet into without it being painful.”

“I'll bring some with me.”

I really didn't like this absolute style of conversation, so I offered, “Would you like me to help you buy some?”

“That will not be necessary.”

I knew she was going to say that. “Then meet me tomorrow at seven.”

“Very well.”

We hung up. I thought to myself, If she doesn't show up I shouldn't see her anyway.

I really wanted her to show up.

My heart skipped a beat and danced when she did.

“Good morning.” I met her at the curb.

“Hello, Lee. Will these do?”

She showed me her shoes. They were black, small, and the same brand as mine. I'm not an expert at gaging foot size, but they looked about right.

“They should be fine. Good job.”

I didn't think Carolyn was an expert at taking compliments. She nodded with the same expression Ludus normally wore. I deposited the gear in the trunk, and we climbed into the car.

The man himself was in this eternal place.

“'Morning, Ludus,” I said.

He nodded, and I smiled.

Carolyn drove us to a parking lot by the bluffs. It was on a windy hilltop beneath a bleak, bare sky as far from the high rises of Celephias as possible on the small island of Phi. It was also the spot where I had always parked when I came here in college. 

We got out, and I slung the backpack full of equipment onto my back. Ludus stayed where he was.

“Does he need a book or something?” I asked her curiously.

“Ludus? Why?”

“Because this is going to be an all day affair. He's a nice guy, if not very talkative, and I don't want him to get bored.”

“Ludus will be fine. He will take care of the vehicle.”

I shrugged. Ludus might very well be attached to the vehicle for all I'd ever seen him move. “Then let's be off. I have lunch, and dinner if necessary, but I doubt we'll have the light to be here that long.” I patted my bag.

Carolyn nodded.

I considered taking her arm, or touching her back as she had so often done to me, but I was not sure exactly where the personal boundaries were drawn. We went down a long flight of stairs, cut into the rock and worn smooth by feet and the elements.

Everything was familiar to me. I had touched each stone and stony plinth before. Sometimes I reached out to feel their salt pitted surface as I passed, enjoying the tactile sensation. Carolyn asked me about them, indicating specific features and formations. She didn't seem to be humoring me. I told her everything I knew about the place, happy we had gone back to an easy, unconflicted conversation that reminded me why I liked being with her. The wind caught her long hair and pulled it out behind us, until she looked like a white faced comet with a black tail. She was beautiful.

We came to the first route I had planned. It was easy, with large pits and steps for holds at the bottom but smoothed out and got tricky towards the top. It would be a good way to judge her skill level.

“We'll start here,” I announced.

I dropped the pack and began prepping the gear. Carolyn nodded and sat down. I had the ropes laid out before I noticed she had removed her street shoes and socks and was holding her new climbing shoes.

“You don't need to put those on quite yet.”

“Why?”

“I'll go first and set up a belay point at the top. When I get back down, we can talk a bit about it. Then I'll watch you as you try it.”

“I can go up behind you,” she disagreed.

I had expected this. I put down the stuff in my hands and walked over to her. When I was standing above her, I held out my hand, and she took it. I helped her to her feet but didn't let go afterwards. Instead I seriously examined her fingertips, the smooth skin, and her perfect nails. 

“Carolyn, I'm going to go first. I'll set the rope and come down. Please stay here and watch the lines, making sure they don't get tangled.”

She locked eyes with me. Carolyn's eyes were an incredible deep brown, soft but strong like aged mahogany. I met her gaze. I don't know if she thought it was a contest of wills I had to win, or if she realized I simply couldn't look away. If her eyes were windows to her soul she was a living goddess. I'd sell myself for the chance to climb into her mind and know what she was thinking.

Suddenly her expression cracked, and she cast it aside like a mask. She smiled, warm and inviting, and relaxed her face and the set of her shoulders. I was still holding her hands, and she squeezed my fingertips. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She squeezed my hands again and let go. I suddenly wondered if I had passed a test as well. “This is your trip. Show me how everything works, first.”

“Girl, talking to you is like playing with fire.”

“Is it as fun?”

“More so.”

“Then try not to get burned.”

Too late, I thought.

Don't misunderstand me. Battles of wills aside, she was remarkably enjoyable to be around. Even that brief contest made the hours that followed more special. I felt like I had won something. She never argued with my instructions, but would question and probe them until she was satisfied with the reasons behind everything I said. She was also very good. She had no technique, and sometimes burnt her strength unnecessarily, but she was relentless and had fine body control.

I spent the next six hours staring up at her butt, thinking things I can't repeat here. It was the best day ever.

By mid afternoon we were far from the usual routes. As expected the place was almost deserted, and when we had gone several thousand yards from the last stairway, we were out of sight of the nearest other climbers. I really wanted to try kissing her again. I didn't, because the dry voice in the back of my head knew how that would end. This was to perfect too end it through my own stupidity.

We had finished a set of routes, and I was looking for a face that would provide two, possibly three more that were hard enough to be enjoyable for me but wouldn't frustrate her. Walking side by side down the beach, not touching but very close, we examined the cliffs. I had positioned her on my inland side. This way when I looked up at the bluff I could see her without obviously staring. 

“What's that?” she asked.

I followed the the line of her pointing finger and noticed a chunk of something on the beach. It reflected the light like quartz.

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

“Let's go look at it.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

We walked over and noticed that the chunk of stone was actually a block, smooth cut six feet long and less than half that wide and tall. It looked rough because it was heavily encrusted with barnacles. Sand sticking to bird droppings obscured the surface.

I brushed aside the sand. We looked down at it side by side.

Carolyn spoke first. “It looks like a coffin,” she said calmly.

“I know.”

In fact, the more I looked at it the more like a coffin it appeared. It was the right size, the top was beveled, and only several minutes of searching for hinges persuaded me that there was no lid. Carolyn pulled my flashlight from her bag and bent low over it, probing with fingers and a magnifying glass for any detail. Suddenly she stood bolt upright, staring at it in unadulterated shock.

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't yet give two thoughts to the contents of the coffin. I only looked at her, marveling at how vulnerable she looked, and thanking the gods they had let me be with her when she dropped her masks so completely. Unfortunately, I jinxed it. No sooner had the thought crossed my mind then her mask slammed shut.

She faced me with the same expression of icy control I'd seen her use at Stephano's when the maitre'd had been about to question my appearance. She pointed down, and once I figured out what she was pointing at I could see that there were letters on the surface. I read them even as she pronounced them like holy judgment, harsh as the word of God. 

“Kuranes the Seventh,” she read. Then she added, “The lost king of Phi. My husband.”

End Chapter 1


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Two days later I pounded on a thick fire door like the police. When it finally opened, Jessica saw it was me and yanked it wide.

“Lee! You didn't tell me you were dating Queen Kuranes the Seventh!”

“Jessica! You didn't tell me I was dating Queen Kuranes the Seventh!”

“Dude!” she yelled.

“Chick!” I shouted back.

We stared at each other for a few seconds at a conversational impasse. Jessica, in case you didn't guess, was the friend of mine I'd told you about before. She was real into the royal family and followed all the gossip, drama, and sordid events of that august lineage. I was extremely mad at her for omitting that little bit of information I was so incredibly curious about, and she was mighty irritated at me for the same. 

Ultimately I pushed passed her and went into her kitchen. She slammed the door shut behind me and followed me. Her apartment was much nicer than mine, and her kitchen was its own little room. I made a bee line for her alcohol cabinet and rifled through it. 

“Pour two glasses of that,” she finally ordered.

I did. I drank them both, then poured another two and handed her one. Jessica considered this, then took the bottle from me, and added to her glass until she had quite the advantage of me. She sipped it and made a face, because she forgot she doesn't like liquor. I drank mine, swapped glasses, and we sat down across from each other in the living room.

“So?” she demanded, popping some gum into her mouth to get rid of the aftertaste.

“I took her climbing like we planned, right?”

“Go on.”

“I'm going, I'm going. Hold on.”

“I'm not holding nothing! You're committing adultery with oldest living member of the royal family. You think we have time for patience?”

“I never even kissed her!” I protested.

“Doesn't matter. Kuranes the Eleventh had a man executed for being alone in a room with his wife for nine minutes. They were both fully clothed the entire time. And that was four Kuranes later. They got less strict as time went by.”

“He did what?” I said, aghast.

“Executed him,” she replied, and drew a line across her neck with her forefinger. Then she also drew lines across her shoulders, her thighs, her ears, nose, a suspicious one over where nothing should have been on her crotch, and then redrew the line across her throat. My eyes bugged out of my head, and I took another deep sip. Jessica nodded earnestly. “And I'm leaving out the bad parts.”

“What bad parts?”

“The real bad parts.”

“What bad parts?” I yelled.

She told me. 

I finished my drink and almost fainted.

“Just for being alone with her in a room. Fully clad. Nine minutes.”

“How do they know it was nine minutes?”

“The guard who ran down to get a chaperon went from the second room of the east tower to the chapel and back. They put a guard in the same uniform and timed him a few years ago. Some historians wanted to check a theory.”

“How do you know this?” I asked, suddenly.

“Trashy magazines. Duh!” she retorted.

“That's a load of crap,” I snorted.

“It was confirmed in Dysman's Complete History of the Royal Family, volume eleven, page four hundred and three, paragraph two.” Jessica reached underneath the chair she was perched on and produced said volume, opened it to the applicable page and handed it to me. She'd clearly been doing this today, because this morning's newspaper clippings were her bookmark. I scanned the highlighted lines and blanched. Then I noticed my face plastered across the newspaper clippings and blanched again. I wanted to take another deep sip of my drink because the first four hadn't kicked in yet. I had the impression that if I took a strong drink every time I had a bad surprise today, I might die of alcohol poisoning by lunch. Besides, I had finished it a few seconds ago.

“So?” she demanded.

“So what?”

“What happened on your date?”

“It wasn't really a date,” I started to explain.

“Did you want to kiss her?”

“But I didn't,” I denied.

“But you wanted to,” she pounced on my words.

“But I didn't,” I reiterated.

“Doesn't matter. Still counts.”

“You're killing me, Jess.”

“No, the axemen are going to kill you,” she said seriously. We both winced in unison. “Sorry.”

“Please, don't do that again.”

We looked at each other in silence. I had to get my blood pressure under control, and she felt embarrassed at her outburst. This time she waited until I was ready.

I skimmed the events of the day until we got to the point where Carolyn announced what was written on the coffin. 

“Right after that, while I was still trying to figure out what was going on, she turned to face the sky and said really loudly, 'Ludus, come here. Now.' I was about to tell her that she's crazy when she started dropping bombs on me. It went like this:

'Lee Harper,' she said. 'Do you remember when I told you my name was Carolyn White?'

'Uh, yes,' I replied.

'That's true, because now that's the closest translation of my name in the modern tongue of Phi. Literally it's Casstrianix Cris, Cris meaning white, in the old language of the High Vold Alliance.'

I replied, 'The who, the what?'

'The High Vold Alliance. The people that lived on the Islands of Vold before they sank into the sea.'

Now, you were the history buff, not me, but I remember something vaguely about the Vold islands, the first thing being that they sank about a billion years ago. I mentioned this to her.

'Eleven hundred and forty seven years,' Carolyn corrected me. 'I remember for that was the first time I met my husband, Kuranes the Seventh.'”

“Oh, that's got to be a kick in the ass,” observed Jessica.

“Shut up, you're interrupting me.”

“Still, I hope I look that good when I'm that old.”

“When you're a thousand years old the worms that eat you when I strangle you for interrupting me will be dead and gone.”

“Jeez. You're real tense, you know that?”

“Jessica-” I warned her.

“I'm just saying. And she's eleven hundred and seventy. Queen Kuranes the Seventh was twenty three when she fled the sinking isles and met Kuranes.”

“Would you stop calling her that?”

“What?”

“Queen Kuranes. She does have her own name, you know.”

“Yes, but do you realize that you using it, being an adult male not related to her by blood, is punishable by death?”

“Says who?” I demanded.

“Dysman's Complete History of the Royal Family, volume-”

“You know, I don't really care,” I stopped her. “I've already got eight or nine death sentences racked up.”

“More than that,” she said. She leaned forward, pulled another thick volume of the aforementioned series from beneath her chair and opened it to another bookmarked page. I took it away from her and glanced at the page myself, but that glance scared me and I threw the book over my shoulder, aiming for the window. I missed, hit a wall, it landed on the cat, and the little fur ball shrieked at me and ran off. For some reason, that made me feel better. I think was the alcohol.

“Would you like the rest of the story, or do you want to keep getting distracted by my impending death sentences?”

“I promise to be good.”

“Good. Now I stopped following the thread of conversation when she mentions that part about the husband, Kuranes the Seventh. She goes on to explain the whole business. How she and he met, he took her back here, married her in royal ceremony, and how the assassin who's-his-butt-”

“Desian the Terror.”

“Shut up.”

“I'm just helping!”

“You promised to shut up!”

“No, I promised to be good. And I'm really bad at promises.”

“Fine. Desian the Terror. Shut up.”

“Hmpf.”

“Desian the Terror showed up in the middle of the night and started stabbing people before the royal couple had time to go off and have their wedding night.”

“That's got to be a kick in the ass, too.”

“Actually, I'm rather okay with it.”

“Well, you would be. But think of the bride and groom!”

“I am thinking of the bride and groom! Well, the bride at any rate.”

“Why do you keep going off on tangents? Finish the story.”

“Jess, I'm already on death row. They can't very well do anything worse to me if I take you with me.”

“The story!” she insisted.

“Fine! Anyway, you know, why am I even telling you this? You know all the details about it better than I do anyway. I barely understood the story when Carolyn, and dammit I'm going to keep calling her that, told me the first time. Suffice to say, Kuranes swore revenge before he consummated his marriage and swore that nothing, not even death, would stop him from consummating his marriage.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Personally, I'd have the wedding night, and then go on my killing spree,” Jessica mused.

“Tell me about it. Backwards priorities, eh?”

“Yeah. Especially with a little hotty like her. If I was Kuranes the Seventh, I'd be one that like white on rice.”

“Hey!”

“What? Don't you agree?”

“Of course I do. But you're a chick.”

“Yeah. And?”

“She's a chick.”

“Did you find out for sure?”

I ignored that. “And you're not a lesbian!”

“I'm not saying I would. I'm saying I figured Kuranes the Seventh would. Hell, we know you would.”

“Well, Kuranes the Seventh was a lunatic. Swore revenge, wandered off, never came back. And since apparently he made this oath on the true throne of Phi, as true ordained king, the power of the throne made it true. So Carolyn has been around all this time. For a while she had a public presence, but she cut that out right quick. From what I gather, so long as she lives, no king of Phi is the true king of Phi, and that's why to sit on the throne is death. The other kings of Phi aren't terribly fond of this, which is why they tried to disappear her a few times.”

“More than that. Apparently Kuranes the Eighteenth sent seventy eight assassins after her.”

“Bastard.”

“He was, actually.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“Good.”

“So she lives a quiet life of seclusion,” Jessica took over the story. She knew all this better than me anyway. “Supported by the Royal Family all down through the ages, kept alive by elder magic and undying love.”

I decided to strangle her then. Jessica, not Carolyn.

“You know- Wait. If you know all this, how come you didn't recognize the picture of her I showed you?”

“Hello! Quiet life of seclusion.” She snorted.

“Thanks. Thanks awfully.”

“Sorry. Anyway, down through the ages until, ironically, you and her are minding your own business when you stumble across a coffin containing her dead husband.”

“And the bastard can't even stay dead!”

“He isn't a bastard. The Seventh is legit.”

“What?”

“He's legit. I checked.”

I snorted. “Anyway, while the cops had me in an interrogation cell, someone comes in and tells me that some enterprising jackass stuck a stethoscope to the coffin, and they can hear the old goat's heart beat through the walls. Lost for a millenia, stuck in a coffin, buried at sea, and he can't even die.”

“Such a beautiful story,” Jessica said. I snapped my head up scowl at her, and saw she was getting all misty eyed.

“You say one word about undying love, and so help me I'm going to deserve all those things they're going to do to me.”

“Don't worry. I like you more that Kuranes the Seventh anyway.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Besides, you're an epic hero, ready to die for unrequited love-”

I threw a pillow at her.

I really wasn't in the mood to have any kind of serious discussion, but Jessica would not let the topic drop. Finally I locked myself in her guest bathroom and tried to get my mind working. Instead I just contemplated the fact that she had a guest bathroom in her apartment. Life was so unfair.

Eventually she yelled something about breakfast through the door. This seemed like a very good idea, and I joined her in the kitchen. She made me waffles. 

“Hey, look at this,” she interjected, interrupting my waffle eating. I followed the line of her finger to the TV.

Carolyn's face, or at least a publicity shot of it, was taking up half the screen. On the other half was the Crystal Tower. That royal building, the tower that the palace had been built around, was somewhere on the order of a thousand feet tall, made of blocks of silver and crystal, and had stood in solitary dignity above the city from time immemorial. Legend had it it had risen from the sea with the island, fully built and simply awaiting occupants. 

The anchorwoman was giving a voice over, “...Which means that she, apparently the bereaved widow, but actually simply a newlywed awaiting the return of her long lost husband, has been residing with the royal family since the time of her husband's disappearance, over eleven hundred years ago. Amazingly, she was the one to find her lost husband.”

“I know all that,” I snorted. 

Jessica, who had been paying attention while I ate, summarized the program. “They've been repeating it over and over. I don't think anyone knows anything interesting, so they're just reiterating that. But you need to wait, there's a doctor Philius Van Marius who's should be on any minute. He's giving the Mage's Guild official statement on the affair.”

“We have a Mage's Guild?” I asked.

“Yeah. Blows your mind, eh?” Jessica replied with a impressed smile.

“Is that like the mafia?”

“I think so. Maybe they drive around the city, whacking people who pull rabbits out of hats without proper licensing.”

“You mean disappearing them?”

“Shush. He's on.”

We both turned back to the TV. There was a stately, well dressed gentlemen with a few dignified streaks of gray hair. He answered a few questions in a deep, resonant voice. “In short, Rebbecca,” That was the anchor woman's name, “at this point we have begun exploring the item. While it is, of course, too early to release a definitive statement, right now our results are in good concurrence with those of the ultrasound crews. It is very likely that someone, possibly Kuranes the Seventh himself, is alive within the sarcophagus.”

From there the TV switched to the ultrasound images in question. While Rebbecca explained them I followed the details. I was forced to admit, they did look a lot like a figure, heavily swaddled in cloth. Four of these images followed each other in rapid succession, revealing that the figure seemed to be breathing slowly, like he was asleep.

“My boyfriend's back, and you're gonna be in trouble,” Jessica hummed softly.

“Ho. Ly. Shit.” I announced.

“Kuranes the Seventh. Also known as Kuranes the Vengeful.”

“Now you're just messing with me.”

“Swear to Rhys,” Jessica made a circle over her heart, in the traditional gesture of that faith. It didn't surprise me that she was a follower of the goddess of success. She was certainly doing well for herself. “He was known as one of the most bitter and vindictive kings of old, worse even than Kuranes the Third who released Warlord Dread with the only command, 'Make them suffer.' Besides, he skipped his wedding night to go hunt down Desian the Terror.”

My stomach dropped out. I remembered something from high school of Kuranes the Vengeful, and what I remembered was not good. I had not put two and two together until now, but I really disliked what it added up to.

My phone rang. 

“Hello,” I answered it vacantly.

“Lee. We need to talk.” It was Carolyn. “I'm coming to see you.”

“I'm not at my apartment,” I started.

“I know exactly where you are. I'll be there in seven minutes.” She hung up.

Jessica was looking at me.

“Jess, you know how you always told me you wanted to meet royalty? Well, I'm about to be such a nice guy.”

The gum dropped out of Jessica's mouth. “She's coming here?”

“In the royal flesh.”

Jessica looked around her apartment in a panic. Fortunately, she was one of those people who always keep their living quarters presentable, so nothing was out of place. She looked up at me.

“Lee, you lead the most exciting life ever.”

I had no idea how to respond to that. “In seven minutes it's going to get better.”

Carolyn arrived in four. There was an authoritative knock on Jessica's door. She barely had time to get it open before Queen Kuranes the Seventh stormed past her and into the living room. 

She stopped a few feet from me. For the first time since I'd known her, she wasn't wearing black. Instead, she had nondescript pants and a sweater in gray and brown. Unfortunately, it made her look more normal and accessible. She was the island of reality in this sudden storm of events. I wanted her so badly my chest seized up. Instead I asked, “Do I need to bow or something?”

“No. When have you ever needed to bow to me?”

“Always, from what I hear. I just haven't been doing it because you forgot to tell me you're the ordained Queen of Phi.”

Carolyn sighed. I had no idea how bitter my voice was, but I wanted to take my words back.

“Oh, excuse me,” Jessica said in the periphery. “You must be Ludus.”

I seized the distraction and turned. Ludus had come in and was shaking hands gravely with Jessica. She shut the door behind him and moved towards the two of us hesitantly.

I turned back to face the queen. “Carolyn, what are we going to do?” 

“I have no idea,” she replied. She sounded exhausted. “But we have to figure that out very quickly.”

“Please, your majesty, have a seat,” Jessica indicated the couch. 

Carolyn turned to her and replied seriously, “Thank you. Call me ma'am. That's the wisest choice.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Carolyn sat down, and I sat next to her. Jessica raised an eyebrow, but I ignored her.

“I'm sorry,” I told the queen.

“So am I.” She sighed. “Well, Lee, you picked an interesting spot for an afternoon.”

“We should have gone to Don's.”

“Indeed,” Suddenly she startled like a rabbit and rose to her feet. “My dear, I'm terribly sorry,” she addressed Jessica. “My name is Carolyn White, Queen Kuranes et cetera, et cetera. I very pleased to meet you.” She offered her hand.

“Jessica Thomas, ma'am. You how no idea how excited I am to talk to you.” She took Carolyn's hand, but I could tell she didn't know whether to shake it, or kiss it and genuflect. Carolyn simplified the affair by taking Jessica's hand in both of hers, shaking it firmly and respectfully, and letting go. “Is there anything I can get you?”

“Something to drink, please. Water would be perfect.”

“Yes, ma'am. Ludus?”

Ludus shook his head silently and waved her off. He was standing in the corner, out of the way but with a good view of the room.

“Lee?”

“Water too, thanks.”

“Sure thing.”

When Jessica returned, Carolyn took the glass from her, thanked her again, and indicated she should sit across from us. They took their seats in unison.

“Well, at least your 'take charge' attitude now makes sense,” I started.

“It comes with the territory.”

“What's new at the palace? As relating to the guy we found in the coffin,” I clarified.

“He's alive. He seems to be asleep. From what we can tell, his heartbeat is strong and his breathing is regular. Some doctors are trying to figure out how to attach an EKG machine to the coffin but have not had any success when I left. The coffin itself is hermetically sealed. There are no air holes, doors, or methods of entry of any kind. The mages are waiting patiently for their chance to examine the thing.”

“The mages?”

“Yeah. We have almost a dozen court sorcerers.”

I blurted out, “You're really a thousand years old?”

Carolyn nodded. “A little over eleven hundred.”

“I'm sorry. I was kind of vaguely aware magic existed, but thought it was like vast criminal conspiracies. Good material for movies, but not really real.”

Carolyn looked at me calmly. “Would you like a demonstration?”

“What do you mean?”

“Magic. Would you like a demonstration?”

“Yes,” I replied excitedly.

“Here.” She shut her eyes and took a few deep breathes. I was holding my own breath, and I think Jessica was too. Carolyn opened her eyes, smiled at me, and exhaled slowly. “There.”

“What?” I yelped. I didn't feel different, and I quickly glanced over my clothes. They all looked the same. Then I glanced at Jessica, while she was doing the same to me. We made eye contact, I shrugged, and she shook her head confused. We turned back to Carolyn. “Well?”

“I'm a thousand years old and still breathing. Magic.”

I stared at her. Jessica groaned with annoyance. Carolyn smirked at us, sipped her water, and settled back into her seat.

“Weak,” I judged.

“Don't be so sure. I know people who would spend millions to have that.”

“Whatever. I thought you were going to show me something impressive.”

“Something impressive, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Like mind control?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “Yeah. But not hypnosis, or any of that.”

“Very well. I promise without hypnotizing you I can make you obey my every command.”

Carolyn stood up and moved so she was standing alone in the middle of the floor. While she was clearing some space with her foot she asked, “Lee, come here please.”

Obediently I rose and walked over. She pointed at a footstool next to her, and I pushed it against the wall.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Then stand on my right so Jessica can watch.”

I did. She looked behind me and noticed I was directly in front of the TV.

“Actually, move over here to my left.”

I did.

“Close your eyes, and take a deep breath.”

My head was beating a mile a minute. I couldn't wait for something to happen. I couldn't see them, but I was straining my ears and intensely ready.

“See. Mind control,” she told Jessica. I could hear the smirk in her voice. I waited for a second, not quite ready to move, but then the two women both exploded into laughter. I cracked one eye.

The two of them were standing side by side, grinning impishly, and looking very entertained with themselves. I stared at them expectantly. “Well?”

“Impressive, wouldn't you say?” Carolyn asked Jessica.

“Oh, very. The most amazing part is he doesn't remember any of it,” she replied smugly.

“What?” I demanded.

“Mind control,” they told me in unison and cracked up laughing again.

When I finally figured out what they were laughing about, I felt tremendously let down. I stared at Carolyn, smirking at me, and sighed. “Oh.”

“Don't be sullen, Lee. Come here. Have a seat.” Carolyn sat back where she had before and patted the couch beside her.

“Let me guess. Mind control,” I replied in a deadpan.

I think Jessica nearly choked to death with all the giggling and chortling.

“Am I going to be able to get a straight answer out of you?” I asked, frustrated.

“Lee, being a magician is a bit like being a mechanic. I know how to change a tire, but I doubt I could claim to be a automotive repair specialist. Similarly, I haven't taken the licensing test at the Mage's Guild, nor have I gone through the school.” Carolyn explained this to me slowly, like she was speaking to a child.

“But you know magic?”

“Like mind control?” She arched one eyebrow.

“Could you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

“Not without her license, she couldn't,” Jessica retorted. 

“Yes, actually. But first I'd need a rabbit. And a hat.” Carolyn ignored the two of us while we were laughing.

“Here,” I handed her a large cowboy hat Jessica kept on her bookshelves. “I think it's still loaded.”

She took it from me and put it on the table in front of her. “Lee, while this is fun, unfortunately this isn't why I'm here. We don't have much time, and we need to get back to business.” She was still relaxed, but I could tell she had returned to her serious tone. 

There was nothing to decide, of course. We went over the particulars of the matter for a while, but that just depressed her and scared me. Eventually we said goodbye and left. I had walked here so Carolyn drove me home.

We faced each other on my doorstep, a modest four feet apart. Ludus had emerged from the vehicle and was now in plain sight down the hallway. He seemed to be fascinated with rearranging his credit cards.

“Tomorrow the assorted doctors, CSI teams, magicians, and a couple of simple lunatics are going to brief the family on what they've managed to ascertain about the coffin. Would you like to attend?”

“Do you think that's wise? Should you and I be seen together, at the palace no less?”

“Lee, if you do come, you and I will probably not get within twenty feet of each other unless the etiquette patrol insists I have a receiving line. I am going to be stuck on the dais with the royals. Besides which, it barely matters anyway. At this point we're both damned if problems arrive anyway.”

“That seems kind of absurd.”

Carolyn sighed and gave me a long look that was hard to read. “Lee, you have no idea. Hope and pray you never meet Kuranes the Seventh. Hope that it isn't him inside the coffin. Or at the very least hope his millenia long nap has mellowed him out somewhat.”

You don't sound terribly fond of the guy, I thought. Darn. Out loud I said, “Then I'd like to come tomorrow. Then at least I'd know what's going on.”

“Good. I'll have a car sent around for you at about nine.”

“I'll be ready.”

“Good.” She paused, like she wanted to say more but changed her mind. “Do you remember what we spoke about in Stephano's?”

“Yes. What in particular?”

“You told me you had a problem when I invited you to someplace and you arrived looking like a poor relation. I'm not going to be able to protect you tomorrow. Go to Masterpiece Thread on the corner of Fifth and Fisherman. Tell them exactly where you're going. They won't let you down.”

I nodded. “I'll go at once.”

“Good. Good bye, Lee.”

“Later, Carolyn.”

The predicament I was getting myself into became even more muddled as I considered it while two tailors measured and taped me. While I'm not terribly religious, I do consider the sacrament of matrimony to be a very serious thing. I was sort of, almost having an affair with a married woman, and that's not something I was terribly proud of. On the other hand, the simple absurd details of the situation were conflicting within me. She'd been abandoned the day of her wedding and left alone for millenia. Back in the old days when Phi had profited almost solely on shipping, you were considered dead if no one saw you for a couple years. The argument could go either way.

There was a play I had seen for a theater class about just that. Some ship captain had vanished at sea and after waiting a respectful nine years his presumed widow had remarried. The captain returned and been quite unhappy with that turn of events. It had never been worked out in the courts because the captain had killed everybody while they slept and then set the house on fire. What worried me was that seemed to be Kuranes the Seventh's style. 

End Chapter 2


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

If you want to feel like you've done something with your life, visit the royal palace. If you want to feel like royalty, have one of the royal cars pick you up at your door. If you want to feel like you're hallucinating wildly, have Prince and Heir Apparent Claudius drive you.

“Morning,” he greeted me when I answered the bell. 

“Morning,” I replied. Then I pulled a double take and wondered if I needed to start bowing. Claudius stepped into the room past me, slapped my shoulder companionably, and took stock of the place. He was early, but I'd been up since before dawn, sketching to pass the time. A large gentleman who bore a distinct resemblance to Ludus came in behind him.

“Cadian Rourke,” he said, and we shook hands. With a sense of deja vu he squeezed my hand tightly, and gave me the same approving smile when I won the game. He followed Claudius in, carefully surveyed the room, and then took a sentinel's position by the wall. I glanced into the hallway, but saw only the neighbor's cat. I shut the door and returned to my guests.

“I'm the prince Claudius, and all that. You are Lee Harper. Introductions done. Fix your tie.”

“Are all of you nobles like that? So curt?” 

“Gods, no. Just me and my aunt Carolyn. That's why we get along so well. Nope, with anyone else we'd barely have begun saying hello, Cadian would still be searching the apartment for weapons, and by the time we got past the pleasantries we'd be saying goodbye as I dropped you off at the palace.”

“Your aunt Carolyn?”

Claudius looked a little older than me. He was about my height but better built. He had very short red hair, green eyes, and royal features. I guess with his bloodline he could look like someone hit him in the face with a shovel and still have royal features, but that was not the case. I'd seen his picture on a thousand magazine covers and news programs, but they failed to convey the relaxed posture and mundane way of looking at things.

“Aunt C, I call her. I've known her since I was born and had to call her something. You're making a mess of your tie. Mind if I help?”

“No. Please.”

“Thanks,” he replied and got to work on that infernal device about my throat. It seems he had reversed the usual role of gratitude, but he kept talking while he worked and I didn't have time to think about it. “Since you're probably wondering, I'm here officially to extent the gratitude of the royal family for you finding the sarcophagus containing that dear dead old goat. You are my guest, not Aunt C's, and so we should say hello before I turn you loose into that snake pit. You do not, in fact, know Aunt C terribly well, but you think she's a wonderful person. With me so far?”

“Yes.”

“Lee, we take this very seriously. The seventh was a decent king, but a real bastard of a person. If that is his royal corpse still sucking wind in that box, he's probably going to be real irritable when he wakes up and no one's really sure what he's capable of. If he starts trying to hack people apart or, Morpheus forbid, wants the throne every thing's going to get very dicey in the old city.” With a flourish Claudius cinched the knot tight around my throat. He brushed my shoulders off, straightened my collar, and refolded my pocket handkerchief. “Now, when we get to the palace there's going to be someone watching us the whole time. Most of the watchers will be mundane, servants who sign contracts with gossip mags or the official paparazzi. Try to ignore them, smile when you can't, and for the love of Trys watch your table manners if you eat. No one should know too much about you, and we intend to keep it that way.”

Claudius spoke quickly and very clearly. His enunciation was impeccable, but the intensity of his voice made it seem like he was pouring information into me with a fire hose. “It's possible someone slightly less harmless might approach you. If someone does start asking you questions, especially about you and Aunt C, tell them the truth. You did some painting for her, always in a tasteful and modest fashion, and she paid you promptly. You took her rock climbing once. Don't get talkative. Still with me?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“I've seen the paintings, by the way. Good stuff.” Claudius stepped back and looked me over with a critical eye. 

“Thank you.”

“You're welcome. Grab anything you need and we'll hit the road. I recommend you take a camera. Most people who come to the palace for the first time seem to like pictures of everything.”

That seemed like a good idea. I keep a camera kit together in case I need to take snapshots for reference later, so it was easy to bring that along. As soon as I indicated we could leave Claudius was out the door and leading me to his car.

The drive to the palace was fast and a blur of lights. We went around the side, entered a subterranean garage, and parked in a vast cavern-like structure made of naked concrete and steel. There were several armored cars, some small civilian cars, and three main battle tanks, all nicely parked by a couple of motorcycles and a street bike. In the corner were a line of racing bicycles. Carolyn's Illusion sat discretely between us and the armored cars.

“Welcome to the east garage. This is where his type parks,” Claudius stabbed a thumb at the silent Cadian as we climbed out of the car. 

“His type?”

“Shadows. Royal bodyguards. Whatever you want to call them. By the way, Cadian is going to be following you around while you're here. He should be able to keep you out of trouble. Just keep your eyes open, mouth shut, and you'll be fine.”

“Where will you be?”

“Off doing royal stuff. Waste of time, unfortunately.” He lead me across a monolithic expanse of empty asphalt, devoid of anything but great pillars twenty feet thick. When we passed through a pair of hardened glass doors two inches thick, a short foyer, and then another set of glass blast doors we were in a small lobby with elevators off to the side. “Anyway, good luck to you.” He clapped my shoulder again, pushed me into an elevator, and waved. The doors shut with a hiss.

The Crystal Tower is a beautiful place. It's been around for close to two thousand years according to the legends, as I've mentioned before, and most of that time has been occupied by various individuals filling it either every manner of gorgeous artwork, lavishly decorated room, or stupifyingly amazing relic of such historical significance I could barely breath standing in the same room. It is also a hundred and nine stories tall and doesn't have an elevator. The dust got real thick right about the time we hit the thirtieth floor. On floor forty three I started wondering if I really had to be at this function after all, and on floor sixty three I stopped caring about works of incalculable beauty I'd studied in art school. I sat down on a patio by a window, and considered the city for a while. It didn't take me nearly as long to descend to the ground floor and return to the palace. With that out of my system, I found the briefing room and waited for it to begin.

Eventually people started arriving. A couple gentlemen in black suits with dark glasses and earpieces escorted me outside the room while it was cleared and privately searched me. I was allowed to keep my camera but warned against flash photography. Shortly thereafter the scientists, doctors, and probably wizards started arrived. I played a little game where I tried to tell them apart. A tech crew set up a couple computers and projectors. More people drifted in.

Eventually Claudius showed up. He walked about the room, talking to just about everyone. When he came to me we shook hands again, exchanged some pleasantries I don't remember, and smiled for the cameras. Carolyn arrived shortly thereafter, but she was surrounded by a mass of humanity so deep I barely glimpsed her. She took a seat next to Claudius.

“His Majesty, Kuranes, King of Phi!” boomed an announcer.

Like everyone else I rose then genuflected. Kuranes the Seventy Third was a thin man of middling years. He met his son in the center of the room, and the two of them made the rounds again. 

“You majesty, Lee Harper. Mr Harper, His majesty,” Claudius introduced us when it was my turn. 

“I'm honored to meet you,” I told him.

“Thank you. I've heard a lot about you,” he replied. We clasped hands in what I expected to be a diplomatic handshake. “One thing I've heard is that you have a good, strong grip,” he continued. I suddenly realized what was about to happen even as it did. 

The King squeezed my hand and bent it into a ball like Play Doh. Claudius grinned then nodded at me and said, very quietly, “Go ahead.”

I looked at him like he was crazy.

“Come on,” invited my monarch.

Oh well, what the hell, I decided and cranked back.

As he had mentioned, I have a pretty good grip. The king, who looked about fifty, proceeded to give me the best run for my money I've ever had. He was smiling, amused, and so was I as we strained for a few seconds. At first he had the advantage over me, but when I bent myself against it I pressed back until it was about even. By this point I was breathing slowly, forcing myself not to pant, and the muscles in my forearms knotted until I thought my sleeves would burst. Kuranes burst out laughing.

“I'm not disappointed. Mr Harper, it's a pleasure to meet you.” He let go of my hand. “Please, be welcome in my house.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Good lad, this one. Take care of him,” he told Claudius, who murmured his assent. They moved off down the line.

I was confused and amazed. The king hadn't even showed any signs of exertion. Where the veins were bulging out on my hand and wrist, his were subdued and showed no signs of effort. It didn't seem possible.

Shortly after that the presentations began. 

First a stuffy scientist, one Dr Krous, a Noninvasive Probing expert from my alma mater, presented his findings. He had sonigrams, x-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, and a string of alphabet soup that corresponded to pictures I steadily understood less and less until I wondered if he was having a religious experience and was speaking in tongues. He was succeeded by a physicist who was very entertaining, but I understood nothing of what he explained. 

Next was Philius Van Marius, the spokesman from the mages guild I'd seen on TV previously. He was even more dignified and charismatic in person. Van Marius began, “The sarcophagus itself is a veritable cornucopia of magical energy. Upon deciphering the first level on encryption, a hazardous process that was the cause of the explosion yesterday, we ascertained that this artifice was constructed by a master. In addition, it is extremely heavily protected from external tampering. While we have avoided taking actions towards defeating the rune structure emplaced within, our initial analysis of that which is without implies these were constructed by an expert in the field of warding commonly used by certain fringe groups in the eras of Kuranes the Sixth through the Ninth. These fringe groups never had much of a presence in Celephias, nor in any of the lands of Phi, but were very common in the north. It was long suspected they were the source of Bizet's stone ship phenomena, that plagued our ancestors during this time.

“The purpose of the rune structure seems to coincide perfectly with the observations made by my illustrious comrades.” Van Marius regally nodded his head to the two scientists who had preceded him. “Whoever is in that coffin is alive. His needs for air and nourishment are being suspended instead of met. The rune structure, what you might consider a 'spell,'” he pronounced the word with mildly patronizing amusement, “is acquiring its power from an unknown source, but channels it through the planets Osinius and Ram. Osinius and Ram are invisible to the naked eye, as you all know, below altitudes of twenty five thousand feet. Since this energy could not be focused through a telescope, that means that the initial casting of the spell would have to be at more than that altitude. After consulting with the preeminent Dr Cobbler, the evidence points to any of the following possibilities.”

I sat up and began to take notice. Van Marius was already the most interesting of the presenters, and while I wasn't terribly concerned about the history, the mention of twenty five thousand plus feet grew fascinating. 

“The first is this artifact was created in the time of Kuranes the Seventh, in accordance with the nomenclature engraved on the lid. It was created at one of the few places in the known world with an altitude that supersedes this height. The stars would have had to have been visible at the time the runes were engraved, which means that both the coffin's occupant and the coffin would have come together at that time, at some place with the requisite height. The forces necessary to make such an effort possible are staggering.

“The second is that this was created an unknown amount of time more recently. Within the last fifty years, science has developed artificial environments capable of withstanding the extreme climate necessary. The sarcophagus would then have been immediately moved to the sea and immersed. This is possible, but directly contradicts the impressive work done by Dr Krous with carbon dating techniques.

“The third is that the magic within the sarcophagus is so sophisticated that it defies everything we have been able to learn. In this case I cannot make any conclusions.

“I am now prepared to answer any questions you might have.”

I blinked a few times. A thousand questions sprang to mind. 

“Dr Van Marius,” began the king. He was seated on a comfortable chair on the left side of the building. It was depressingly non-throne like. “Where are these few places where such an event is possible?” 

“Of the known mountain peaks that exceed the required elevation, all of the explored summits are in the Hescorpi range in Nirmo. There are a total of seventeen.” Dr Marius paused and almost invisibly braced himself with a deep breath. “The rest are exclusively within the Mons Messina.”

“The Mountains of Madness?” Kuranes replied. Suppressed smiles raced through the crowd and a few hushed chuckles slipt through the crowd. 

“Yes, sire. Where Desian the Terror fled after assaulting the wedding of Kuranes the Seventh, and where Kuranes himself followed,” replied the doctor. He turned to Carolyn and asked, “Correct, your majesty?”

“Yes,” she replied quietly.

“Were it created more recently, where would it be possible to do such a thing?” the king asked, quickly diverting the topic from that line of conversation. 

“Sire, any of the Hescorpian mountains would provide a plausible location. All of the great peaks of that range have been successfully ascended before.”

The king asked him a few more questions about the mountains, then returned to the topic of the coffin itself and the magic that protected it. I didn't pay too much attention because having been born and raised in Nirmo, I was familiar enough with everything there that the discussion bored me. I perked up a bit when the discussion returned to the coffin, but it was the same kind of discussion that the other scientists had had. Everyone else seemed to follow the thread of it, so I frowned attentively and spaced out.

Unfortunately, I didn't space back in until the briefing was done. I tried when the next presenter rose, a woman with wispy white hair and wise eyes. When she started talking about barnacle growth I was gone. After that it was done. For an hour or so I sat and considered what Van Marius had implied, kings and covens of sorcerers on forbidden mountain tops in strange place. The Mons Messina were like Utopia to climbers. The twenty tallest surveyed peaks in the world were there, none of which had ever been successfully summited. Others had not even been successfully surveyed by plane. 

None of them had ever been measured from the surface, of course. 

When everything broke up later, I mingled around, trying to get closer to the magician. I was almost to him when someone, a wiry little bastard, asked about the Mountains of Madness in an instigating tone, and whether Marius intended to propose an expedition there. Marius looked slightly ill. He demurred softly and retreated from the room. I never had a chance to ask the exact same question. 

Eventually, I moved into the hallway. Cadian tapped me on the shoulder and lead me to a side room, where a buffet was laid out. The food was amazing. I realized I had to come to more of these events. 

The rest of the crowd meandered in and began talking about things I didn't understand. I fell into a circle of men discussing politics and tried to look attentive. After a few minutes of that I was so bored I couldn't stand and politely withdrew. I glanced over my shoulder at Cadian.

“Cadian, how do you talk to these people? Everything I have to say sounds retarded.”

“A fool and sage say the same thing with their mouthes shut.”

Cadian seemed to have a lot more going on in his head than I had expected. Good advice is good advice, so I took it and nodded to him. Cadian nodded back, just as seriously and silently as Ludus always was. Then he tapped my shoulder and indicated Carolyn, who was leaving in a crowd of suits wearing thousand dollar shoes. He indicated a side door. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes,” I replied. “There's nothing else for me to do here.”

Cadian escorted me to a different car, a black sedan. He held the rear door open for me, and then drove me home. 

Along the way I called Jessica, “Hey, just letting you know that I've just returned from the palace. It's a nice place. You should visit some time.”

“I hate you,” she replied.

“Why? I'm just saying its a nice place.”

She hung up on me.

A few minutes later she called me back, and I told her every gory detail. By the time I was done I was home.

My apartment was just as I had left it. I stared at the naked wiring in the ceiling, the bare floorboards, and the rust creeping along the metal in the kitchen. My room felt very small.

But, as I'd mentioned a while ago, it was getting on towards the winter holidays, and business was picking up. My clothes, which I removed and carefully hung up, had eaten up most of Carolyn's most recent payment. I had one other commission to be done, a portrait of a small dog that had never sat still long enough to be sketched. Some mildly wealthy widow had wanted it. With a resigned sigh I began sketching an outline. I set my phone on the counter, where I could easily answer it if anyone called. No one did.

By evening I had made good progress. I stared for a few seconds at my work. It would be ghastly when it was finished, but the old lady would love it. I knew that instinctively. Old people are crazy about their pets. I washed up and went to sleep.

My building has, among other defects, shoddy plumbing. About midnight I arose and stumbled into the bathroom to find out the water to my apartment had gone out again. Grumbling, I put on clothing and went three doors down to the blasting music of my neighbors. I knocked a few times, and they let me in.

"Bathroom?" I asked.

"Bathroom," they agreed. Amazingly, they weren't in the midst of a session. My neighbors were very devout worshipers of Morpheus, God of Dreams, and enjoyed all that entailed. By that I mean recreational chemicals known to enhance one's dreams. By that I mean they smoked the ganja in staggering quantities. "Hungry?" one asked hospitably. 

"No. Bathroom." 

"Suit yourself."

I stayed for a bit, cracking jokes and had a beer, but left when they brought out the glass bongs. I wasn't really in the mood.

When I returned to my room I noticed I'd left the door ajar. I swore a bit under my breath. After I listened and didn't hear anything, I barged in. The lights came on and flickered. 

Two men climbing out the window with my TV while a third held the window open. The one with his hands free had a large pistol that he used to wave around the room, pointing at other things they should steal. He froze in the act of this as we considered each other. I had a perfect view of all three of their faces.

"Sorry, mate. Bad timing," he said.

"No kidding," I replied.

He raised the gun and leveled it at me. 

I wish I had smoked with the rest. Then I could blame my paralysis on that. When you live in my neighborhood, you get a gun drawn on you sooner or later, but until then I'd always been lucky. I'd planned for this, considered what I'd do. I'd even run simulations in the wee sleepless hours of the morning for just such an occasion. Now that it was on me I realized that I had absolutely no idea what to do next. I certainly couldn't dodge a bullet. Was it worth trying anyway? It seemed absurd, really. Kuranes the Seventh was going to kill me, not three idiot robbers.

The thug shot me.

That is, he tried to shoot me. Instead he missed and hit the ceiling, because someone had knocked his arm up.

I saw his face in the muzzle flash. The burglar's knit hat was pulled low over his face, but Ludus I could see perfectly. His skin was orange, and his eyes reflected the white light of gunpowder like an angel's. The gunshot missed, and then Ludus got his great hands on the intruder. 

In the dark I saw him scientifically murder three men. Starlight illuminated the room, turning everything black and white. He shattered skulls, broke necks, and stove in ribs, destroying their bodies with medicinal attention to detail. It was as inevitable as the rising tide but shockingly fast. Fittingly, it happened in deathly silence. First the intruders' lost their wind, then their voices, and when Ludus deemed the last act finished and his final victim dropped into a limp boneless heap, they weren't even corpses. They were bags of skin and bone fragments. There was no blood.

“Lee, wake up,” Carolyn snapped.

“Who are you?” I stared at the huge man who had said so very little all this time.

“It doesn't matter. Lee, are you hurt?” Carolyn interrupted again, moving to me. 

“No. No, I'm fine.”

“Ludus, clean the room. Lee, look at me. Lee.”

Ludus went into action again like a machine. He stripped a sheet from my bed and began rolling them into it. He never blinked. Carolyn had to physically grab my face and turn me to face her. She was so very close.

“Lee,” she said, very softly. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” I murmured. Why was she acting so funny? It was like she didn't think I was listening over the deep thrum. The one sound I could hear in the background was a single bass tone, vibrating through my skin and bones, but already fading as the work in the midnight was vanishing. I felt it slipping away as I began to notice her fingers on my face and her eyes on mine. It was hard to think.

“Good. We need to go. Right now. Do you understand?”

“No, not really,” I admitted. 

“Will you trust me on this one?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Get up. We need to go, right now.”

She took my hand and pulled. I stood up following her lead and let her lead me like a child out the door and down a flight of stairs. She was very careful not to touch anything, the door, the wall, the banister, and I did so as well.

Outside the Illusion sat in the alleyway. It melted into the shadows. Until she opened my door and pushed me in I wasn't entirely sure what was going on. The inside was familiar. It smelled like pine trees and leather. 

Carolyn climbed in the driver's seat and started the car. It purred, barely above a whisper, and we slipped onto the street and away into the night. 

“That was my fault. I'm sorry,” she told me. She was biting her lip, driving absently while the gears in her head turned over. Her eyes were locked on the road.

“Why?”

“I underestimated them. The last twenty successions have been so peaceful that I forgot how vicious they can be. I also underestimated their time line. I thought we had years yet.”

“Successions?”

“Royal successions. Who's going to be Kuranes the Seventy Fourth. By nature the events are savage, bloody affairs.”

Understanding was coming to me in glimpses and fragments. “I thought Claudius was the heir?”

“He is. Until he dies.”

“They're going to kill him?” I wasn't terribly sure who 'they' were.

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Carolyn snapped. 

We were making good time towards the south. Apartment buildings were giving way to vast industrial plants and low rows of warehouses. I seldom came here.

“Who are they?” I have a lot of problems playing obscure word games. 

“The people who tried to kill you.”

“And who is that?”

“I have no idea.”

“They seem pretty intent,” I observed, fishing for information. A warm tingling feeling had begun moving towards my head from my fingers and toes. It felt good.

“It would seem so. If anyone's playing by the old rules, that means that they have to kill or control quite a number of people. All the royal family, of course. Myself included.”

“Doesn't that seem a bit paranoid?”

“Lee, fratricide has killed more Kuranes then cancer. Murder has killed more members of the royal family than all natural illnesses combined. It's very discretely hidden in the history books, and as I said, the last twenty or so have been surprisingly peaceful. This one won't be.”

“But how do you know this is in any way connected to that?”

“Lee, I've been around for a little while. I've got instincts about this sort of thing.”

“Ah.” The tingling sensation had reached my hips and shoulders. I looked down and saw my fingers twitching in my lap, like they were typing. My feet were drumming on the cushioned floorboards. 

“Basically, it's too much of a coincidence. Three adept murderers break into your apartment the night after you first come to the palace. Only a buffoon or a lawyer wouldn't know you're connected to me, and my first mistake was bringing you to the palace at all, letting anyone see how important you are. They might think they can influence me, or they might want to scare me. It might be something worse.”

My ears were beginning to tingle. I couldn't hear everything she said, and couldn't focus on what I did here. I tried to talk. “How do you know they weren't just burglars? I do live in a pretty shitty part of town.”

“Impossible. Ludus would never have that much trouble with burglars.”

“Trouble?” I could still distinctly remember the fight, and I didn't remember Ludus having any problems at all.

“Lots. He had to kill them. He should have taken at least one alive.”

While Celephias never truly sleeps, it gets pretty torpid between midnight and dawn in the industrial district. Some factories run all the time and a few cars putter quietly about, but we had the streets mostly to ourselves. Even more strangely, we had the car to ourselves. I'd never been alone with Carolyn while we drove before. I mentioned this.

“Enjoy it. We'll be running for a while, now.”

“Running where?”

“Not to where. Away from where, more specifically here. Wonder why I was so fortuitously present in your time of need?”

“No, not really. I hadn't gotten there yet.”

“Start paying attention to those questions, Lee. They could save your life.”

“Fine. Why were you so fortuitously present in my time of need?”

“About an hour previously someone tried to kill me.”

I got pretty upset at that idea.

“Are you all right?” I demanded.

“I'm fine. They tried to run me off the road while I was driving back from a meeting with Philius Van Marius. They missed, and I raced away. They didn't give chase after that, because it couldn't be covered up to be an accident.”

I looked over at her. She seemed calm, almost flippant. I remembered from Jessica that this had happened to her many times before. That also seriously bothered me.

“How did you escape?”

We'd stopped for an intersection and Carolyn turned to face me. She was grinning wryly. "Magic."

"No, seriously."

"I'm being serious."

"Really?"

"No."

"Then how did you do it?"

"I told you. Magic."

"You said it wasn't!"

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did. You said magic, I said really, and you said no."

"I know. I never say yes when someone asks me 'really?' It confuses people, and the question irritates me."

I stared at Carolyn. She met my gaze until the light changed then turned back to the road, her expression level. This didn't surprise me. It was a very Carolyn thing to do. 

"So, it actually was magic?"

"Yes," she replied. She looked mildly annoyed that I kept asking the same question over again.

"Really?" I asked, mostly to annoy her more.

"No," she replied, annoyed more, and drove on. 

I watched Carolyn as she drove, trying to intentionally see the details of her face and expression like it was the first time we'd met. Her hair remained a uniform shade of black whether passing lights cast fluttering beams on her face or the deeper shadows wrapper around her like a scarf. Her eyes were very deep brown. Sometimes neon lights gave them wild colors, and for a moment they glowed with brilliant red or blue, totally artificial and strangely hypnotic. The very tip of her nose was turned up, typical of some young women, and her lips looked soft. Other than her incredible control, she seemed so young it was hard for me to reconcile her with the legends.

Not that I really cared, but, "So where are we going?"

"The south side docks. There's a safe house I have there. You'll be staying there until Ludus cleans your house and disposes of the evidence."

"Why don't we just call the police?"

"Because that would tell whoever sent the assassins after you too much. Bodies can be autopsied, and my name might be brought into it. The whole thing reeks of public scandal. We'll sweep this quietly under the rug for now."

"Who's Ludus?" I asked.

"My bodyguard." She looked at me curiously.

"No, I mean personally. I saw him rip three men apart. They had guns and probably knives. Who is he?"

"You've never heard of the organization I recruited him from. He doesn't win medals from the government. But no one questions him when he carries weapons on a plane or into government buildings. Ludus is utterly reliable, and possibly the only man I trust."

"The only?"

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. "Possibly." She was smiling, like we might have a secret joke between the two of us.

"I'm not sure I like the sound of that."

"And what are you going to do about it?" she asked, testing me. She did that a lot.

"Well, since I'm not going to fight it out, I'll have to think of something I can do to earn your trust."

"Like what? Slay a dragon for me?"

"No, probably not. I think I'll leave dragon slaying to Ludus. He could probably handle it. But if you need any rocks climbed, let me know. Also, portraits painted and dress codes violated."

"Rocks climbed, eh?"

"Oh, yeah," I laughed. "You name it. I'll climb it."

"Mt Icstath." She said it so seriously I stopped dead, mid-chuckle. I turned my head to face her very slowly.

"What do you mean?"

"Mt Icstath. It's where Desian fled to and where Kuranes chased him down with half his army."

"I know. It's also the tallest mountain in the world. It's never been summited."

"Want to try?" We'd stopped at another light, and she turned to face me. Her eyes were a challenge, like a spider inviting a fly into her parlor. An evil, excited smile lurked on her delicate lips.

"The heart of the Mons Messina?"

"The heart and soul."

"I would love to," I replied. The tingling feeling crested and began to fade.

"Good," she replied, and the trap slammed shut. 

End Chapter 3


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

When she pulled up to the old, dirty docks on the south side she parked in a small garage. We got out and locked it up behind us. I started towards the building, but she caught my arm.

“We won't be going to the safe house after all. If we're going, we should go now.”

I blinked. Leave for the Mons Messina right now? Without packing or gathering my belongings? Do I really want to do this, I asked the silences of my mind.

Hell yeah, they replied.

“Sure. Lead the way,” I told her.

We moved through alleys and side streets to the water front. After scaling a rusty fence we hid behind some dumpsters as a security guard wandered passed. Then it was down a narrow sluice way to a small private dock. Recalling the expensive Illusion she drove and the staggering opulence of the palace, I glanced about, looking for the magnificent yacht.

“It's that one,” she whispered.

That one was certainly not a magnificent yacht. It was a floating deathtrap that stank worse than the polluted water or the factory exhaust. It stank at range. It stank almost visibly.

I glanced at Carolyn, glanced at the boat jalopy, and sighed. Nothing ever worked out the way I expected.

“Go get the boat,” she whispered again, and pointed. A dim figure dressed in thugged out chains was standing on the dock, rocking on his heels. “Be careful about the guard.”

“How am I going to get past the guard?”

“Here. Use this.” She handed me a rock.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A rock,” she replied.

“No, I mean-” I stopped, exasperated. “Is it a special rock?”

“Yes. It's magic. It casts 'sleep' on its target. Hit him in the head to activate its power.”

“Thanks so much,” I deadpanned. “Does it do mind control too?”

“Sure. Tell him to do what you want or you'll cast sleep.”

“Wait, why am I doing this? You're a thousand years old. Don't you know tiger dragon claw style martial arts?”

“What is tiger dragon claw style?”

“Whatever!” I replied.

“You mean, why didn't I spend the all my life not living, only practicing kung fu so I could hurt people?”

“Exactly.”

“Gee, I don't know.”

“I don't either. You could have been bad ass.”

“Lee, get the boat.” Now she was exasperated.

We scowled at each other, and I crept down to the water. The pier was only fifty feet away so I swam there beneath the surface, careful not to make any bubbles. The water was filthy. I shimmied up a pylon and slid over the side. The guard, not terribly alert, was smoking and staring off into space.

I cast 'sleep' on him.

“What happened?” Carolyn asked when I returned.

“I hit him with the rock.”

“See? Worked, didn't it.”

I sighed. “Come along, Carolyn.”

We scurried down the pier and over the side of the dilapidated hulk. When passing the guard I dumped him into a trash can. His snores echoed out, and someone would find him soon.

We cast off and swung away from the row of docks. There was barely enough current to pull us along. With poles and boat hooks I shoved us past the other floating detritus that mired each side of the channel. Before we hit the bay the fog that comes from the hot water runoff from the factories swallowed us up. All we had were the buoys dull bells. 

“So, Cap'n, where too?” I asked when we were moving.

“First we pick up supplies. Then straight to the Mons.”

“Nirmo, then?”

“Can we get everything we need there?” she asked me seriously.

“Easily. It'll be expensive, though.”

Carolyn didn't respond. Instead, she flashed a black credit card, then fanned it to reveal four more. She had a royal flush of money.

“I love dating a rich girl,” I observed.

“We are not dating,” she told me.

“What are we doing?”

“Running for our lives.”

“We certainly aren't running very fast,” I replied, archly.

“We're taking the subtle approach.” With that she started the ancient diesel motor. It coughed for a while, then turned over with an exhausted wheeze. Finally it settled into a soft grumbling punctuated by erratic spurts of noise. It was slightly quieter than my first car. That one had not had a muffler. With an emphazemic wheeze we pulled away from the docks. On the open water noise from our hacking motor traveled out to the great container ships and echoed back. 

I rolled my eyes.

“But you're right. We aren't moving very fast,” she relented. “Go stick your head over the side and see how fast we are moving. Watch a log or something.”

“No logs,” I replied. “But I do see a dead rat floating by.”

“Fine. How fast do you think we're going?”

“The rat is passing us.”

Carolyn pursed her lips. “Hmm,” she declared.

“Don't worry. We should be at least a mile from shore by morning,” I reassured her dryly.

“I'd like to be a good distance away before that thug wakes up,” my not-girlfriend replied.

“That may not be for a while,” I murmured.

“What? Why?”

“I hit him pretty hard.”

Carolyn did not reply immediately. When she did she spoke very carefully. “Why?”

“I don't have much use for the Chads.”

“The who?”

“The Chads. The gang he was part of. He had a yellow bandanna around his neck. That's their color. He also had a teardrop tattooed behind his ear. That means he's killed somebody.”

“Ah,” she replied delicately.

“But they'll be after us soon enough,” I changed the subject. “We can't outrun much in this.”

“Actually, we can,” she contradicted me. “All we need is moonlight.”

“How?”

“Magic,” she responded. “Honest, real, no-trickery magic. There. Does that make you happy?”

“Yes.” I thought for a moment. “Yes, it does.” I smiled a self-satisfied smile.

We crept along forever. My watch said forty seven minutes, but I thought that was a filthy lie. The erratic putt of the motor was the only sound in the fog. 

Eventually, the fog began to clear. The moon came out. I surveyed our ship. It would be the nautical equivalent of my apartment, only it slanted worse. Outrunning anything, even another dead rat, would be magic. The first rays of moonlight bathed us.

“Death the Dragon, Simon's friend, bear me now to Kuranes' end,” she intoned in a hurried mutter. Immediately, a cloud covered the moon, plunging us back into darkness.

“Carolyn, I'm scared,” I said suddenly. “Let me hold your hand.”

“That's not my hand,” she replied acidly.

“Are you sure?” I squeezed a couple times. “I'm not scared any more.”

“Oh, you should be,” she told me in a voice like death.

The cloud passed. The first rays of light caught the fore deck, and the whole ship burst into brilliant light. The deck, and now sails and rigging, glowed with a radiant white light. It dimmed after a few seconds to a warm incandescence that lit the vessel in its own starlight. The ship was longer, more elegant. The smokestack was replaced with two soaring masts, with sails fully set. No longer did the decks consist of rusty sheet metal. Everything was albino wood the shade of molten silver. The gunwales, the hatches, and even the helm were intricately carved with bizarre designs whose meaning tore at the limits of my consciousness but did not spring to mind. The only thing I recognized were the two wings that folded at either side, giving the ship the aspect of a hunting hawk. I stumbled forward a few steps, open mouthed.

“We're riding the White Ship of Celephias, Lee,” Carolyn said softly. “We'll make good time now.”

I stared about the deck for a long moment, then turned and gave Carolyn a sincere smile. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” she replied gravely. 

I went forward until I stood at the bow and stayed there as small waves broke against the keel. Soon we were free of the mist. Alone under a starlit sky, we seemed to be parted from every plane and other ship from Phi's great harbors and ports. 

Eventually I returned to Carolyn's side. She stood behind the wheel, seeming lost in thought, but my return was not unnoticed. Soon she asked me, “Lee, why do care so much about magic?”

“Because it's-” Magic, I was about to say, as if that explained everything in and of itself. I stopped myself and reconsidered. There was a more thorough answer. “I live in a fantasy world. I have to. I'm an artist, and the only reason people want paintings instead of photographs is I can add something to the real world. I can take something boring and make it more, just by adding a bit to the image. I can paint the warmth of a family much easier than a camera can capture it. My entire job, the thing I love about art, is that I can go a bit beyond the world of what is, and show a bit of what can be, or what almost is, or what should have been.

“You're like a distillation of that. You're royal, which is a magic we normal people never see to begin with. You're a thousand years old and know people who are just history lessons to me. But even before that, you're so far from the normal world that sometimes I'm amazed you obey the laws of gravity. Nothing you do matches up with the world I'm stuck in, but everything matches up with the world I work in. You live in my fantasy world. And when real magic happens, real magic that I can see, it makes me feel like I can be there with you.”

That had gotten severely out of hand. I realized as the last words left my lips that I'd probably crossed some fundamental boundary between what I should have said and what I did. I was terribly afraid again, because she said we weren't dating and I just spoken to her like we were.

Carolyn looked at me sagely. She never lost her calm or betrayed any reaction. Instead, she reached out, took one of my hands, and put it on the helmsman's wheel. “Here. She's yours for the moment. You can steer.”

I shifted and stepped so I could grasp it with both hands. Intricate traceries sent surprisingly complicated sensory impressions through my fingertips. Carolyn moved back so we weren't touching, but left on hand lightly on the wheel beside mine. 

“Keep to your course,” she said softly. “We'll be fine.”

I won't bore you with the details. We made amazing time to Phados De, a little city on Nirmo's coast. It takes four hours by plane. We arrived the next day. Phados De is the gateway to the highlands of Nirmo's interior, full of outdoors outfitters. With effectively unlimited funds I purchased everything that the four of us would need.

Four because late in the afternoon the day we arrived Ludus and Cadian appeared. They walked into a store without saying anything and began bagging my purchases like it was the most natural thing in the world. We trooped back to the ship.

“Glad to see you, gentlemen,” Carolyn greeted us when we boarded. “Ludus, help me with the stowage. Cadian, you stick with Lee.”

I glanced at Cadian, who acknowledged me with a nod. I shrugged. His appearance was another thing that didn't surprise me in the least. Besides, if the local fauna at the Mons Messina lived up to its reputation we would need them. Two days later we set sail again.

End Part 1 “Carolyn”


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Sailing is fun. The first day out of Nirmo was full of excitement. There were ropes, knots, sails, sheets, big metal things that did stuff, and water. There was lots of water.

There wasn't much to do, however. Carolyn was locked behind the wheel. She taught me the basics of navigation, but said she couldn't leave the wheel to let me practice. With the two men-at-arms on the deck, we were hesitant to get overly comfortable. I set up an easel and did some sketches of the ship while we talked.

I also did a quick study of Carolyn behind the wheel. I worked on that till the light changed, and then set it aside for morning. With nothing else to do I started one of the others while they worked out on the deck below.

Those two intimidated me, and I was relieved to see them work out like normal men. They did push-ups, sit-ups, and hours of other mundane exercises. They did a lot more of each then I could but nothing supernatural. After the sun passed by over head and began setting before us, I was forced to set that work aside as well. I grumbled about this to Carolyn.

“Watch,” she encouraged me. “I imagine they're going to start combat training, and that's pretty exciting to see.”

It was.

First they went through a brutal series of drills, critiquing each other and executing moves up and down the main deck. They simulated guns, knives, and broken bottles, and practiced both with and against the weapon. When sparring began it wasn't the insane, no holds barred death matches I'd expected. Instead, one would pick a technique and the other would practice innumerable counters and ripostes until it seemed that every conceivable combination of moves was tested. Then they switched. This went on for hours.

“Man, that looks fun,” I observed.

“Go join them,” Carolyn suggested.

“Are you kidding? I'd be murdered.”

“I doubt that.”

Ludus missed with a block and took a foot to the face. Cadian's heel cracked against his forehead and lifted him an inch off the deck. His body crashed into the main mast, shaking the sails and rigging above with a rattle like dry bones. 

“Woman, are you trying to get me killed?” I asked archly.

Ludus laughed, rubbed his forehead, and stood up. The two of them discussed the exchange in low tones before squaring off again.

“See? He's fine.”

“He's also been through 'surviving death' training, I bet. I'm not so lucky. Nor do I think the ability to survive normally fatal injuries to the head parts is necessary to prepare to summit Icstath.”

Carolyn shrugged. “Fine, but I think you'd enjoy it.”

We watched another flurry of movement. “You may be right,” I admitted. “But I don't want to make them stop, just to do the basics with me.”

“Wait until they go on to sword fighting,” she suggested. “Less chance of injury anyway.”

“Except the whole bleeding thing,” I retorted.

“Lee, they aren't going to train you with real swords. You'll be fine.”

“Carolyn, they beat each other with two by fours.”

“Are they bleeding?”

“Do they have blunt trauma?”

“I tell you what. Start with sword fighting, and then try some marksmanship. Both will be useful skills where we're going. I'll order them to be nice, if you want.”

“I don't need you to protect me.”

“Then stop being a wimp and go ask. You'll enjoy it.”

I snorted at her but let myself be persuaded.

I admit it. She was right. They put me through one hell of a workout, but I learned a lot. They were both extremely proficient in a fast, brutal style of combat that was ugly to watch. Instruction was also ugly, but I gathered it would be very effective. There was surprisingly little parrying, and a lot of killing the other guy as fast as possible. They warned me an experienced sword fighter would cut me to ribbons, but with work I might survive long enough to get away. When we were done my legs were in agony. Shooting was similar. They made me do an hour of drills before allowing me to use any real bullets. That evening I slept exhausted.

In time we came to the Mons Messina. One morning I awoke to see them looming above the clouds, gray and indistinct on the horizon. Dawn's early light had barely struck the mast, but illuminated the peaks before us.

“Beautiful, aren't they?” Carolyn asked from the pilot's deck behind me. “I love the way they rise out of the sea.”

I looked back at her. On this trip she seemed to have stopped sleeping entirely, never leaving the wheel except for minor breaks to eat and drink. But she didn't look tired. Instead her eyes had a peculiar longing for the peaks ahead. The wind came from behind her, catching her cloak and hair and whipping them forward. Black in the dim light, her hair lashed over her shoulders like it was straining forward as well. 

“Very beautiful,” I replied. I don't think she caught the meaning of that as I stared at her. I liked the way there was so much going on in her eyes. I could see wheels driving purposes in her mind. “And dangerous.”

“They can be,” she admitted, assuring me she missed my point. I let it ride. “They march to the edges of the Norad Contagaian. Past the coast they get even taller then what you see.”

They grew all day. With a strong wind behind us I noticed them beginning to loom, but didn't gain any real sense of perspective till a swarm of clouds we were chasing hit the side of the peaks about halfway up. The clouds butted against them before draining through some of the lower passes. By afternoon Carolyn began furling the sails, and we edged forward. Isolated standing stones detached from the gray stone blur and stood like sentinels as we came in. Many of them stood between us and the distant mountains. The waves were very still and beat against the foot of the tall plinths.

Carolyn sidled us up to one and had Cadian take a sounding. Forty fathoms, he reported. I did some mental calculations and realized I had no idea what a fathom is.

“Six feet,” she told me when I asked.

“That's pretty deep,” I decided.

“Considering we're not far from shore, yes, it is,” she agreed. “We'll anchor here and run in the morning. I don't want to run out of light around here.”

I considered this. I was sitting on the railing across from the immense obelisk and looked up at it. It was like a needle poking a hundred feet up into the air. The very tip looked blunt. It must be about three hundred feet tall, underwater parts included I decided. Lichen and bits of moss encrusted the lower part where tall waves could reach, but above that was naked rock scoured clean by the wind and rain. There seemed to be no traces of birds on top, which surprised me.

“Impressive, isn't it?” Carolyn asked.

“Very.”

“We used to call them watchers, but I don't know what they're called now. The sailors where I was from thought they were gods of the waters. They considered them good luck.” She paused. “You should paint one.”

“I will,” I agreed. I got up and walked past her to sit on the other railing, facing out towards the watcher. The stone was polished by the sea this low. A small fracture ran up the side, the only real feature for the first twenty or so feet. That disappeared just above where the lichens stopped, but there the surface roughened up. I followed the crack up with my eyes. It was so close I could almost touch it. “Gods, were they?”

“Yes. It will be your first image of the-” she broke off at the splash. I couldn't hear her, of course, since I was underwater and swimming for the rock, but she was always a practical one and wouldn't waste her breath.

“Lee! What are you doing?” She yelled at me when I stuck my head out of the water. 

I didn't answer. I came up for air, grabbed the crack, and pulled myself up hand over hand until my feet cleared the water. It had been chilly but not brutally cold. By leaning way off to the right, I followed the crack up, careful not to touch the lichen. There were two distinct types, one of which had numerous pointy parts, but fortunately neither of these was as prevalent as they had appeared. In a couple seconds I was past their height. 

The stone was even more pitted than I had imagined. Big, deep cracks lined side of it. My bare feet were wet, but the route was easy. The rock was sun-warmed, and I dried quickly. Before I started paying attention to what Carolyn was yelling at me she had stopped. 

After a couple minutes I glanced over my shoulder and saw I was level with the crow's nest. Cadian was watching me expressionlessly. I grinned at him and continued up.

The top was rounded like a bald head. When I came over the side and sat down to rest, I realized I could lie down with arms and legs spread wide. There were no bird droppings at all, and the clean rock felt warm underneath me. It would be a great place for a catnap, provided I didn't roll over in my sleep. That would be bad.

“Hey, down there!” I yelled when I had my breath back. Carolyn had joined Cadian in the lookout's perch. 

“Comfortable?” she yelled to me.

“Very! That was fun.”

“Good. Glad to hear it. Have you given any thought to how you're going to get down?”

“Jump,” I replied. The water was certainly deep enough. 

“I wouldn't recommend that.”

“Why? It should be deep enough. All you have to do is hit feet first, right?”

“Oh, I'm sure it is. It just that these waters are infested with carnivorous fish.”

“They're what!?”

“They're dormant during the day. At night they come out. Some have evolved little claws so they can climb. That's why birds don't nest up there.”

“But they're dormant during the day, right?”

“Unless someone wakes them up by splashing around in the water.”

“I see,” I replied. “Are you playing a prank on me? Meat eating fish that climb seems pretty ridiculous.”

“Oh, don't worry. You'll see much worse in the mountains. This is just a taste.”

“Cadian, is she joking with me?”

Cadian shook his head very seriously. Cadian had never struck me as much of a joker.

“Really?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “You'll be fine. Try it and find out.”

To be honest, Carolyn had never struck me as much of a joker either. 

“What do you suggest?” I asked.

“Just wait. We'll throw you a rope.”

I did, and they did. Cadian tied a weight to the end of it, spun it for a while, and hurled it up to me. It was a pretty long shot, but he was a beast. I considered tying a harness and jumping. That works a lot in the movies, but at best I was probably going to get vasectomy. I was rather fond of those parts. After a while I found a place to tie the rope to and climbed down. 

“That was fun,” I explained when I was back on the deck.

Carolyn gave me a flat look. “At least we have more than enough rope to spare,” she finally said.

I shrugged. I was here to climb. What did she expect me to do? 

We lowered sail and moved off. Before night fell she pulled us to another halt. “If we, and by we I mean you, can agree to avoid climbing any of the scenery, we'll stay here for the night.” She looked at me suspiciously.

I pretended to be hurt. With an air of injured dignity I replied, “Are we clear of the biting fish?”

“No. But they won't climb this ship unless someone advertises the presence of an easy meal.”

“Why?”

“White Ship of Celephias, Lee. Magic.”

“Oh, right.” That was cool. “Sweet. Can we at least pull up to another god? I've got a new canvas and some great ideas.”

“If you promise to behave yourself.”

“I can't believe you would even imply I wouldn't,” I sniffed and looked down my nose at her. We were about the same height, so I had to tilt my head up to do it. The look she gave me told me she was having none of it. “Besides, it's almost dark, and I hate climbing at night.”

“Very well,” she relented. By evening I had penciled out what I wanted. Carolyn stood in the foreground, hair streaming behind her like we were still underway. The immense watcher loomed up behind her, but I was using similar shades to imply they had the same permanence. The primary contrast was the phallic nature of the plinth and Carolyn's femininity. 

She came over after dinner and sat on the rail behind me, watching over my shoulder. “But we're not moving now,” she observed.

“Artistic license,” I replied.

“Ah.”

“The problem is I can't take them with us.” I indicated my other work with my hand, the ones drying on the deck and metaphorically the five I had in a stack below. It had been a very productive trip for me so far. “I don't know what the mountain air will do to them.”

“We can stop in Baiglor, if you want. It's the only civilized city of any size on this continent and should have an air freight station at least. You can ship them back to Phi.”

“Good idea,” I told her. “I'll send them to Jessica.”

“The girl I met just after the climbing trip?”

“Yep. Her. She's a trustworthy sort. She'll store them for me until I get back.” I explained further after comparing my work and the subject. “Her boyfriend is a-” I searched for a diplomatic way to say pretentious prick. “art critic. He'll know how to take care of them.”

“You don't sound fond of him,” she said dryly.

“They met at a show I had and hit it right off. Then he went home to write a pretty scathing review of me.”

“And you're trusting him to take care of this?”

“No, I'm trusting her.” I smirked up at her. “Unlike you, I trust lots of people. Besides, Jessica takes care of this kind of thing for a living. She's some kind of attorney.”

“Foolishness,” Carolyn decided.

“Yes. Foolishness. Wouldn't it be terrible if I went off and acted without thinking, perhaps getting myself into some kind of ridiculous adventure?” My smirk deepened.

Carolyn rolled her eyes. She stood up and walked past me, pausing to squeeze my shoulder as she went. 

Two days later we made port at Baiglor. It was a dirty sprawling city that grew cancerously out from the harbor to envelope the nearby foothills. The vast mountains the rose behind it overshadowed the city in the afternoon light when we arrived. Several small rivers ran down from the white capped peaks and dumped into the sea here, forming the harbor in their delta. Oddly enough, our ship had been an ugly yacht since I woke up the day before. No one acted surprised.

“Why don't you and Cadian go out and find an air freighter. Ludus and I will refill our provisions.”

“You can take Cadian if you want,” I declined, eager to wander about the city alone for a while. 

“I'd rather none of us go off alone. There are seedy elements here. Someone might see you alone and think of mischief. Safety first, after all,” she observed.

I thought about street thugs and wondered what would happen if they got into an argument with Cadian. I doubted it would go well for them. In fact, it would probably go badly enough that they wouldn't be getting into mischief ever again. “Safety first,” I agreed.

It wasn't hard to find AC, Air Celephias, a reliable shipping company I'd used before. Before I finalized the arrangements I called Jessica.

“Hey.”

“Lee! What's up? Where are you?”

“Oh, just up at the Mons Messina,” I replied airily. “I'm going to do a bit of climbing. I'll send pictures.”

“You're where?” she shrieked. “With the queen?”

“Oh, she's around here somewhere.”

“I'm so jealous.”

“I know. Can I ask you to do me a favor?”

“Love too.”

“I'm going to send you a few pictures, some sketches, that sort of thing. Can you have Hector take care of them until I get back?”

“Hector? I broke up with him days ago. I'm dating a Theo now. He's a senate aid.”

“That's terrible,” I lied. “Why?”

“Theo? He has season tickets to the Cavs,” she replied, referring to a sports team.

“The Cavs? I never knew you were a waterball fan.”

“I wasn't.”

“Oh. Right. Anyway, why'd you break up with Hector?”

“He's a pompous ass.”

I couldn't very well argue with that. 

“Can you take care of my work?”

“Love too. How are you handling your rent and stuff?”

“To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it.”

She sighed. “Lee, you're a mess. How long will you be gone?”

“I have no idea.”

“Lee!” she complained. “That's terrible. Want me to take care of it for you?”

“I don't know,” I waffled. 

“Lee, how much is your rent?” 

I told her.

“My dinner last night was half that. Listen, we'll make a deal. I'll take care of everything for now and you can pay me back when you return. In exchange I want details, pictures, everything.”

I felt guilty about letting her do this. I'd always avoiding asking for her financial help before. But now that I thought about it, I didn't know what options I had. “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“Of course I can. This is my job.” She snorted. “Now you go off with that royal girlfriend of yours. I want details, man. Details. Dirty, sordid details of the affair.”

“We don't have any sordid details!” I insisted. “Or affairs!”

“Then make some! What are you doing over there?”

“Nothing!” I replied. “Actually, I'm not kidding. We haven't done anything.”

“Why not? You run off to the ends of the earth with her and you're not sleeping together yet?”

“No.”

“Get to it!” she ordered.

“There's that whole husband thing,” I retorted. “You know, Kuranes the Vengeful.”

“Oh. Right.”

There was a short, uncomfortable silence. “Speaking of whom, he's still asleep in the coffin, blissfully unaware of you entirely,” she informed me.

“Good.”

“Lee, seriously though, be careful. Don't do anything dangerous.”

“Relax,” I reassured her. “Everything is perfectly safe.”

“I want you back in one piece!”

“I'll be back!” I was as emphatic as I could be. “Queen Kuranes the Seventh is taking care of me.”

“Good. Now go do something scandalous with her. I want something to relive vicariously.”

“Later, Jessica.”

“Scandal, Lee!”

I hung up on her. 

Jessica was the sister I'd never wanted. I rolled my eyes and returned to the ship with Cadian. Muggers were curiously absent.

We spent the night in Baiglor. There was some noise on deck during the night, but when I went up to investigate everything was quiet. Ludus was leaning against a gunwale with a self satisfied smile, playing with a short length of steel pipe. I looked at him inquiringly. He just smiled back, even more smugly.

“Weirdo,” I thought and went back to sleep.

We caught the next high tide and said further up the coast. The coast was merely the place where the ocean hit the edge of the vast plateau that laid underneath the Mons Messina. On our left, to port I think, the ocean waves crashed futilely against solid stone walls that rose hundreds of feet above our heads. Behind that cliff was another, and another behind that, until the earth piled up into peaks that scraped the sky and climbed through low ocean clouds. My fingers twitched if I stared at the cliffs too long.

“No,” Carolyn preempted me.

“But-”

“No.”

“Aw,” I whined. 

“There will be plenty of that later. Trust me.”

“But-” I didn't know how to finish so I just waved behind me at the rocks.

“Patience, Lee.”

I didn't have her practice at patience so I went below and painted. I felt like I would go crazy.

The next day we came to the river Rons. It tumbled down the the side of the stone in a narrow gorge filled with violent falls and the echoing roar of confined wrath. There was something distinctly angry about the sound of the plummeting river in the confining defile it had carved for itself. I think it wanted to get free. We slowed and halted just outside the turbulent water. I noticed then that the White Ship had gone back to it's magnificent appearance. I hadn't noticed the transition, and that was even more exciting.

“We're about to begin the hard part,” Carolyn explained to me. She was standing at the wheel, facing the gorge. “Are you ready?”

“We're going to climb that!?” I exclaimed, excited. The walls of the coarse ravine looked as treacherous as the chaotic river. 

“No. Go tie yourself in.”

I stared at her as her implied meaning sank in. “What?”

“Ludus, spread all sail! Cadian, I want every scrap of canvas open.”

“No,” I whispered. 

“Yes.” She smiled. The furled sails dropped open and boomed as they caught the wind. We lurched forward like a gunshot, and raced into the chaotic foam at the cliff face. “Now, I strongly advise you to tie yourself in and hold on to something.”

We hit the first fall with a shocking collision that seemed utterly out of place on a ship. The water grabbed the bow and yanked it down, lifting the rear of the ship high out of the water. I tumbled forward, clinging to a life line as the ship seemed to dive into the sea. Then the falls caught the deck and squirted us backwards like a spit watermelon seed. We rocked back, and the bow swung high into the air. I flew backwards and crashed into the deck again. The sails boomed again with the wind. Our vessel lurched forward, shoved by the wind, and we caught the steep fall with the bow. We hung there a moment.

There was another lurch, and we surged forward. I was dangling towards the back of the deck, and I saw the raging river rush by underneath us. There was absolutely no reason would wouldn't be sucked backwards and torn apart. Instead we picked up speed. Every mast and spar creaked with strain. Wit the bow angled to the sky we began to sail up a waterfall.

“Carolyn!” I yelled. I really had no idea what to say.

“I told you to lash yourself to something,” she reminded me.

I realized I was still only holding the rope, albeit in a death grip. I wasted no time tying that around myself and continuing to tie knots until I ran out of slack. If you can't tie a knot, tie a lot, went an old seafaring rhyme that suddenly seemed terribly sensible. The gorge walls passed us in a stately parade. 

Carolyn was standing, her body perpendicular to the deck and parallel with the sea far below. She wasn't tied in at all, but kept her hold on the wheel with an easy grip.

“What about you?” I asked.

“It takes more than this to knock the captain from the wheel of this ship,” she scoffed. 

I looked up into the rigging and saw Ludus and Cadian still aloft. They were holding tight there with impassive expressions. Cadian looked down at me and slyly winked. I felt a sudden connection to him since he had a personality after all. We both enjoyed the crazy times. 

Then I realized again we were sailing up a waterfall and nearly lost my mind. The next couple hours were hell on my nerves.

We climbed up into winter. When we finally lurched over the edge of the top cataract the ship hung in the air, balanced on the very stern end of the keel. I glanced over my shoulder and saw an incredible fall behind us. We were so high that seabirds above the ocean below were only distant specks. Breaking waves were small lines of white foam that tumbled into nothing against the rocks. The ship swayed, rocked back, and then the wind shoved us hard. We toppled forward. The splash sent two plumes up on either side that spread like wings. Then we continued our stately pace, this time level, as we retreated from the falls and the gorge behind us. The river howled with fury as we defied its grip and made out way to the calmer torrent that raced for the ocean and freedom.

The air was colder here. I didn't really know how high we were, but the breeze had a biting chill. As we swept past the bank and wound into the great Mons Messina a few tiny flakes escaped their resting places on the snowbanks above. A single flake drifted lazily before me and landed on my nose. It was a tiny spot of cold that vanished instantly but promised many more to come.

End Chapter 5


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“How much further?” I asked over supper.

“In miles or days?” Carolyn, attached to the steerage by one hand, lowered a chicken wing and turned her head to me.

“Either.” I shrugged.

“Miles? Perhaps a hundred. It's had to say since the Rons is never straight. It's a twisted thing that winds through the mountains for miles trying to get to the sea. Days are even harder to guess. Terrain, weather, and even route are so flexible a guess would be only a wild guess. Also, the wildlife could delay us.”

“I keep hearing about the wildlife. Is it really that dangerous?”

“Yes,” she said seriously.

“Even with the deadly duo?”

“The wildlife is why we brought the deadly duo.”

The Norad Contagaian is the encircling sea the surrounds the Messatic continent. The grim exterior of the continent is the Mons Messina, a ring of the tallest mountains in the world that guards the barren interior. I hear geologists are still trying to explain the plate tectonics of it. I also hear they aren't getting anywhere. 

As for the Messata itself it's a sparsely populated land, vast in size and mostly unexplored. There are a couple of pretty simple reasons for that, Carolyn explained to me over dinner. The first is its remote position. It was thousands of miles away from any other land at the extreme north of the world. Now while Phi was in the midst of winter it was in its summer. The sea was warm now, but even still in the great interior plateau the temperature was cold. Intermittent snows would be a problem at the comparatively low altitudes of the Rons and rendered access to the great peaks like Icstath impossible during the winter. 

Other than location and weather the only thing that grew well on the Messata was rocks. Farming was impossible, requiring any settlement like Baiglor to import all its food from elsewhere. 

“What about hydroponics? Green houses and so forth?” I asked.

“Too cold in the winter. Too cold for most of the summer. Also, down at sea level the soil is bad. It's rich with heavy metals. Plants grown here usually have high concentrations of lead. Would you like to be slowly poisoned by everything you eat?” she asked rhetorically. 

“Couldn't someone import dirt, or purify the dirt here?”

“Hideously expensive.”

“Oh.”

“The people who do live here mostly try to extract rare elements from the earth. Mining is big, but still very expensive, and that keeps operations small. The incredible wear on electronics is prohibitively draining on large operations also.”

“I've heard about that.” It was why my conversation with Jessica had been so short. Phone time was expensive. “What causes it?”

“The entire continent is much richer in metal that anywhere else in the world. Also, Pallas' magnetic field directly touches the earth here. Erratic currents burn through electronic components and make long range radio unreliable.”

That was obnoxiously mundane. I had hoped it was a forbidding of the elder gods. 

“Will we be able to use our radios?”

“Yes, but we won't have much long range capabilities.”

“I see. Do we have good maps?”

“Yes. Satellite recognizance provided us with that.”

“What about the wildlife? Monsters and so forth?” I asked curiously.

“Most of what lives here is dangerous. There's money to be made in that, but not much. Phi's military does some training here, and I imagine most other countries do as well, but there isn't much tactical advantage in maintaining large settlements. Nothing here but rocks. And even the most savage dragons usually don't fly thousands of miles to waylay foreign cities.”

“What if they do?”

“Surface to air missile batteries.”

“Wouldn't it be better to fight them on their home ground?”

“Why? Why exhaust ourselves going to their place of strength to attack when we can defend better and more easily?”

“Well then what about this Desian character? He fled here.”

Carolyn shrugged. “Well, this place is remote and isolated. If you need to run from the long arm of Kuranes, this is a good place to run too.”

“And we came here to chase him.”

“We came here to find answers. Kuranes, Desian, the entire Seventh Legion, all their stories end here. I doubt the scientists and wizards of Phi will learn anything far away in their safe colleges.”

“The Seventh Legion?”

“Kuranes' personal army,” she explained. I noticed she never referred to him as her husband or in a more affectionate manner. I smiled a bit. “They were separate from the true army of Phi, not loyal to the land but Kuranes himself.”

Carolyn considered her words carefully before speaking with distaste. “Kuranes took the throne from his father in a bloodbath that cost the life of his every surviving relative. To do that he raised the an army of mercenaries. They were legitimized somewhat when he renamed them the Seventh Legion, but not entirely. They did his dirty work. The stigma attached to that group is the reason there is no Seventh Legion now.”

“What kind of dirty work?”

Carolyn was silent for a while. We finished our meal on the pilot's deck and cleared the plates away. Hills crowned with frost covered trees marched by on the bank. The trees were dark pines that cast forbidding shadows. I pulled up a few buckets of water from the Rons and began to wash the plates. 

“Isn't there lead in the water?” I asked.”Should we be cleaning with this, much less drinking it?”

“This high up the water should be fine. It's only a problem by the coast.”

I shrugged and continued washing up.

“Have you ever heard of Klagresh?” she asked.

“No.”

“Shortly before the islands of Vold sank and I married Kuranes to secure the safety of my people, the nations of the Desert Kingdoms rose in revolt. Phi had an empire back then not based on trade, but the ruthless conquest of the earlier Kuranes and their Warlords. I'm sure you've heard of Dread.”

“He wasn't a nice guy, as I recall.”

“The man was a monster. When he conquered the desert cities long before even I was born he crushed them. Klagresh was one such city. Since it was the heart of the military resistance to Kuranes, he put every man, woman and child to death as a threat to the rest. Men were beheaded. Women were vertically impaled.” She had returned to the steering wheel but glanced over at me while she said this. “You know what vertical impalement is?”

“I can imagine,” I replied.

“You probably can't. Children, Lee. Children. Anyway, Klagresh was destroyed. He burned the bodies in the fields, polluting them for years to come. It took years for the earth to be able to grow crops again. It was centuries later that Klagresh rose from it's fall, and people lived there.”

“Something tells me they weren't to happy for that.”

“Hated of the Kuranes was the religion of the desert for years. While Kuranes was waging his civil war the people of Klagresh took advantage of Phi's weakness to declare independence.”

“I have to admit, I agree with them.”

“Don't. The first thing they did was execute every citizen of Phi in the same manner.”

“Well, if Dread did it first-” I trailed off.

“There's no justification for that, Lee. Dread was a monster. The men of Klagresh only sank to his level.

“When Kuranes' power was cemented, a few years later, he didn't bother with diplomacy. He marched the Seventh Legion into the desert. Every city he came to was summarily destroyed. The men were all executed, and the rest turned loose, naked into the desert. They fled to other cities, bringing news with them. Strained to feed the refugees, the cities fell one after another to Kuranes. Some fought, some surrendered and plead for mercy. It didn't matter. The men died, the rest were turned into the desert.

“Eventually, Kuranes came to Klagresh. He ruined that city in a much more permanent manner than Dread had.”

“Worse than Dread?”

“Yes.” Carolyn stared ahead at the river as it passed between the steep banks. I watched her, wondering what she was thinking. “Klagresh never recovered. The city was never rebuilt, and even now no one lives on the site. It's a twisted, evil place. There are things of the old world that have no place here.”

I thought for a while. Carolyn must have married shortly after all this. I could not reconcile her with having married that man. The two thoughts would not mix in my mind.

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

“Do what?”

“Marry the bastard?”

Carolyn sighed. “The isle of Nuetha was the first to go. Volcanoes began spewing smoke and fumes, and the people fled. Finally, lava poured down the shores, burned the cities and forests. Everyone fled, some to Vold, the largest and greatest of the islands in the old alliance, some to Agremedia, where I lived. They ran to anywhere they could go. Not long after I remember a great noise in the night. Waves tore apart the beaches of Agremedia. In the morning I rose and saw only a dark cloud where Nuetha had been.

“It awakened the mountains of Vold. Less then a day later they began to fume and rumble, and the people who were just arriving panicked. More came to Agremedia. We had no lofty peaks, and they thought they would be safe. My father took them in as he could. Finally we watched as the horizon turned red,and the sea boiled. That night the fires lit the sky and hid the stars. In the morning Vold too was no more.

“The earth quieted but slept restlessly. Rogue waves plagued the fishermen. Everyone was terrified. We had no place left to go, and no ships to move us.”

“Kuranes sent envoys. The fleets of Phi were vast even then, and the great city of Celephias could house multitudes. In exchange, Kuranes needed an heir, someone he could trust. The memory of his deeds in Phi was still fresh, and he couldn't trust any woman of his home in his bed. One thing lead to another. Then a crack appeared in the hills of Adelaide, venting sulfurous gases. The earth began to stir again, and every day the city shook.”

Carolyn shrugged, resigned. “I did what needed to be done, and no one else could do. My father lead our people to safety, and I went to Kuranes.”

“And then Desian the Terror interrupted everything,” I interjected.

“Indeed.” She smiled. 

The more I thought about it, the less I disliked Desian. Perhaps 'the Terror' was too strong an epithet for him.

“How did we even get onto this topic?” she asked finally.

“We were talking about why so few people live in Messata,” I answered.

“Yes, we were,” she agreed. 

I looked past her to stare at the passing scenery. Around us the incredible mountains continued to watch us as we crept by. A large brown creature came shuffling down from the edge of the trees and lapped at the water. I watched it. “At least the scenery is nice.” 

The beast seemed to sense my eyes on it. It looked up with deep brown eyes and rubbed its nose with a furry paw. I smiled at it and waved.

It reared onto its hind legs and spread its forelegs wide. Then it roared, a deep ugly sound that bounced off the mountains and echoed down the river's course behind us. Its big lips pulled back from long, unnaturally sharp fangs. Somehow its jawbones must have shifted, because the teeth began to jut forward like they were reaching for me. That must have been an optical illusion, like how the eyes of the monster had gone totally red. 

I stopped smiling and put my hand down.

The beast dropped and shambled back into the woods.

“Charming,” Carolyn deadpanned. “Are you going to paint that too?”

“Not right now,” I deferred. “Right now I'm going to ask Ludus and Cadian for more combat training.” I noticed I had retreated from the railing and was now at Carolyn's side.

“That might be a good idea,” she replied. She reached out and scratched the back of my neck a few times before she patted me on the shoulder. 

“If you'll excuse me,” I murmured and went looking for the two bodyguards.

We continued to climb steadily, and the workouts shifted from combat exercises to acclimation. The air grew thin and cold. Soon breathing grew difficult. Short climbs into the rigging left me feeling winded with splitting headaches. It was the same sensation I got every time I went home to Nirmo to visit. The only cure is more conditioning to force the body to adapt. Even Ludus and Cadian were having difficulty with the altitude. We trained and trained, while Carolyn sailed us upstream, unruffled and apparently unfazed by the change in air pressure. When I asked she replied, 'Magic.' 

Not many days later we came to the wide rapids of Wellidis where the Rons plunged down below the snow line on it's way behind us to the sea. The river was wide here and not terribly fast. Higher up near a cleft in the shoulder between two peaks it was different entirely. There the water was funneled between two great cliffs, and it howled and leaped down like savage beasts fleeing a terror. Our plan was to sail up these like the cataracts below. We would go in the morning.

Eventually sleep took me. My dreams were black and out of focus. Strange emotions followed each other in a confused jumble where nothing was connected to what had come before. Most of all was remorse and worry, with intense but distant ambition. Ultimately the bizarre experience drove me from sleep, and I threw on some clothing to stumble onto the deck above.

Ludus was already there. He was perched on the bow railing, facing back towards me. For a moment I was incredibly intimidated by that strange, silent man. The way he hunched forward when he sat made him seem to loom over the deck. The moon was creeping behind the peaks and cast shadows that reached out to shroud him and leave the deck exposed. 

Carolyn had been talking but went silent the moment I emerged. On the wheel deck she regarded me seriously, giving me the impression she had been speaking about me. That was not terribly odd. There were only four of us on the trip, and each was pivotal to the mission in their own way. What was odd was the way she looked exhausted. Had almost a month of missed sleep caught up with her at once? 

For an awkward moment no one said anything. Then Ludus rotated himself so he was overlooking the water. I climbed to Carolyn's side.

“Insomnia,” I explained.

“You should keep trying. We'll enter the half-basin in the morning. You may not get much sleep at all after that.”

“The Icstath half-basin?”

“Yes. Those peaks are the basin wall.” She pointed up at line of mountains that we stood before. “We should be less than twenty miles away after we pass the rapids.” 

“I hadn't realized we were so close,” I admitted.

“If you get a map, I'll show you,” she offered.

I went bellow and found the thick book of satellite photos and topographical maps. I also grabbed a light folding table, since she would probably still be stuck to the wheel. With a few pens and pencils just in case, I returned to her.

She pointed at the big blob of white at the center of the map of the northern hemisphere. “That's the polar ice. This,” She indicated a small half-circle of land that protruded from one end. “is the Messata. About half of it is under the polar ice. The next closest bit of land is this, Osibius Isle. Other than that, there's nothing for about three thousand miles in any direction.”

“Osibius Isle?” I asked, curious why anyone would name an island after the god of murder.

“A whaling ship ran aground there during the reign of Kuranes the fifty fourth. Even though there was plenty of food and supplies, the survivors had exterminated each other before anyone found them. Now it's a nature preserve.”

“Lovely,” I replied dryly. 

“Apparently they all went stir crazy. That or they were cursed by the ancient gods.” Carolyn shrugged. “They're dead. Anyway, the Mons Messata are this ring of mountains here. Farther north they get enmeshed in the ice. The continent sinks underwater there and only the tops of the mountains rise above sea level. Farther south, where we are, they form the outer spine of the continental plate. That is also where they're the highest. That includes the Icstath half-basin.”

There was a wet thump over the side in the dark. Our heads snapped up as Ludus rolled silently backwards off the gunwale. He crept along the deck on his stomach until he could glance over the side where the noise had come from.

Then he gave a grunt, reached down, and yanked Cadian over the side and onto the boat.

“It's clear,” Cadian reported. He was dressed in a tight black suit that dripped on the deck. He discarded it and his light clothing underneath was dry. “The ruins are deserted.”

“Any signs of Kuranes?” Carolyn asked.

“Everywhere. There's a mule path that runs up the side of the rapids. The mile markers are Seventh Legion insignia. At the top the defile is fortified on both sides. It is, or was, a legitimate fortress. It doesn't look like it fell by violence, but there's no signs of life. Both gates are sealed, and the walls mostly intact. I scouted around but didn't see any signs that anyone's lived there in hundreds of years. No bodies either.” Cadian shrugged. “As for the rapids, they're even worse than expected. There are seven major drops.”

Carolyn nodded slowly, then turned and stared upriver into the night. The roar was loud even this far away, echoing down the canyon towards us. 

“What about beyond the basin wall?” she asked.

“No lights.”

She thought for another long moment.

“We'll keep going as planned,” she decided. “If we have the time, we'll do some daylight recon of the ruins.”

The other two nodded. “In the meantime, Cadian go change your clothes and get some sleep. Ludus, head below. I'll take the watch.”

“What about me?” I asked.

“You should try to get some sleep as well. I have some things I want to think about tonight.”

I shrugged and went below. Sleep did not come easily, and it seemed morning arrived before I even closed my eyes.

End Chapter 6


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Strong winds were pulling the snow from the surrounding peaks down on us when we came to the top of the rapids. The snow wasn't sticking everywhere, but wafted down around the ship and limited visibility. Ascending the canyon had been treacherous more than tricky. It had taken a full day, and we spent the night lying at anchor in a still pool while Cadian and Ludus ranged through ruins and short pine forests. They returned shortly before morning.

“Did you find anyone?” Carolyn asked.

Neither one of them replied immediately. Ludus went below without speaking. Cadian considered his words carefully before replying, “Sort of.”

I looked at Carolyn. She looked at me. We both looked at Cadian. 

“Sort of?”

“Kuranes' Seventh Legion is still here. They fortified this entire basin when they first arrived, and they still hold it in parts.”

“But they'd all be dead by now,” Carolyn observed.

“They are,” Cadian replied. 

“This conversation cannot go well,” I said to myself. “There is no way I'm going to want to hear what comes next.”

“What happened?” Carolyn asked. 

“We found fresh tracks around midnight. We followed and caught up with a pair of legionaries climbing a staircase set into the cliff wall. They were dressed in the summer armor of the Seventh Legion. We greeted them using the codewords you gave us. They attacked.”

“Bullets didn't stop them,” Ludus announced in his voice like breaking rocks. He had returned silently. “We had to use force.”

The three of us paused for a moment, but Ludus' unusual loquacity didn't continue. Cadian resumed the story.

“We used the silenced SMGs first. The rounds penetrated the armor but didn't terminate their advance. I had to push one off the ledge. Ludus stopped the other with a rock.”

“Ah, you cast sleep on him,” I commented.

“No, I hit him in the head,” Ludus replied.

I opened my mouth to explain, but stopped and let it go. 

Cadain continued, “When I examine the body its internal organs were frozen solid. Just touching him make my fingers numb through the gloves. He wore this on his armor.” He handed Carolyn a small medallion. 

“Veteran of the Desert Campaign,” she translated. “Klagresh. In the center is the Seventh Seal.” She looked up at Cadian and sent him a long, level look. “Then what happened?” She handed me the medal. It was bronze or something similar, and piercing cold through my gloves. The surface was hardly tarnished. The casting was crude and looked mass produced. It also looked very old.

“We hid the bodies and backtracked. They had come from a palisade built nearby. It had a log wall, one large hall, and a small outbuilding.”

“Celephian long term field encampment,” Carolyn explained. “The larger hall is where everyone stays. The smaller building is for storage, either of food or prisoners. There should be sanitary facilities also.”

“We didn't check,” Cadian admitted. “We returned here directly.”

“Get ready to sail,” Carolyn ordered. “We leave immediately.”

The other two nodded. Ludus had two assault rifles with him, and he gave one to Cadian. They also both buckled broadswords onto their belts. After that they scurried into the rigging and got to work. Carolyn turned to me.

“Their descendants?” I asked, hoping but not expecting. 

“Armies don't bring women with them,” Carolyn replied. “And there certainly weren't enough people here to begin with.”

I had expected that. “So?”

“Kuranes had few scruples when dealing with old powers of the earth, and some of those powers do not rest after being called up. Lee, you had better go below and arm yourself. Get a sword.”

“Yes, ma'am!”

I hustled down to the large room where we kept the weapons. Inside were several swords, an ax, half a dozen handguns, knives, and a large, ominous looking black case carefully padlocked in. There were a couple of machine pistols in a drawer at the bottom. Those looked very serious, and I considered taking one, but realistically I had no idea how to shoot them. This also didn't seem like a good time for experimentation. I took one of the short broadswords similar to what the two bodyguards were carrying and belted it on.

Simplicity had given it a bit of elegance, but the weapon was inherently a purely functional implement of chopping, stabbing, and slicing. The blade was slightly less than two feet long, broad and thin with a groove down the middle. The sheath was similar. It was made of nylon with rigid plastic reinforcement. A small pouch held a sharpening kit. The sword clicked when it slid in and was held there by a small clasp. I belted the sheath onto my side and tried not to let it get tangled in my legs. I considered laying it across my back, but that would look retarded. 

The weapon was much lighter than I had expected. The practice swords Cadian and Ludus had trained me on were significantly heavier and not as well balanced. I whipped it around a few times in the hallway, getting a feel for the weight, and realized it felt surprisingly comfortable in my hand. 

I then had a moment of surprising intelligence and decided to get cold weather gear as well, just in case. My room was small and off the main hallway, mostly filled with canvas, paint, and a chest of clothing. I was collected my gloves when gunfire erupted on the main deck.

Sudden memories of my last evening in Phi came to mind. I'd frozen then and required Ludus to save me, something that burned and infuriated me now. This time I was armed, had some training, and come hell or high water I was not going to require saving again. I threw on my gloves and stuck my head into the hallway. There was nothing to see.

More gunfire sounded off, then stopped suddenly. I heard heavy footsteps, crashing sounds, and bodies being torn apart. I stole to the base of the stairway and listened. Everything suddenly went very still, and I waited.

Mist began to waft under the crack in the door at the top of the stairway. It was thick and pooled down the stairway like oil. Mental alarm bells started chiming. I glanced right, left, then up, and noticed the beams of the deck above were uncovered by any false ceiling. They were set with ornamental carvings of the history of Phi, like the rest of the ship. The few lanterns down here were widely spaced, and cast deep shadows in the crevices above. I sprang up, grabbed on, and wedged myself into the ceiling. 

Footsteps, many of them, sounded off behind the door above. With sword in hand, I froze. 

The door suddenly slammed open. Someone stormed down the stairs, followed by many more. Their grieved shins came into my line of sight, then short metal skirts, then chest and breastplates. A bunch of them, perhaps a dozen, charged downstairs and into the hall below me. Their armor was a piecemeal match up, with pieces missing or simply rusted away. With them came the fog. It tumbled down the stairs, crashed into the walls, and splashed up around me like water before dissipating like vapor. I tried to hold my breath.

The men were dead; clearly, undeniably dead. Their eyes, though bright and vicious, were cold like well sculpted wax. The veins underneath their skin were also dark purple, and their skin was pale and waxen. Their quick movements were stiff and forced. Watching them stalk down into the ship was like watching marionettes. Each had the same logo as the badge I'd seen before. When they got below me their helmets blocked my sight of their eyes, taking away their alien aspect. 

When they had passed underneath me I cleared my mind, prepared myself, and released my hold on the ceiling.

Nothing happened. I tried to release my hands and feet, but they were locked in place. My body was perfectly immobile, even my eyes, to the point I could no longer even blink. 

They charged about below, checking every room. I could hear their boot steps all over the hold of the ship, trudging about searching. Finally a cluster of them started to form beneath me. They exchanged short, barking grunts either interrogative or negative. More arrived. I stopped struggling to get free and remained very still. The only movement I had control over was my breathing. I stopped that. All dozen of them stood in the hallway, grunting at each other. Utterly paralyzed, I stared down hoping none of them looked up. 

Then the door opened, and a loud, commanding bark echoed down from above. Grunting and coughing, they marched back the way they had come. Footsteps continued to mill about on the deck but even that finally stopped. The mist began to fade away beneath me. For a long time I stayed motionless, second guessing myself and thinking about what I should have done.

In the middle of that my muscles relaxed all at once, letting me face-plant into the deck. It knocked the wind out of me so I couldn't howl with pain. When I had my breath back I got up and snuck up the stairs. I paused, readied my sword, and started talking myself into opening the door. All right, Lee, I thought. Crack the the door, and just glance around. Everything's silent out there. There's shouldn't be anyone. You can do this.

You can do this, I thought again, a little more insistenly. Ready? Set.

The door was yanked open from the other side. I saw armor, a helmet, and punched the face as hard as I could. It scared me so bad I forgot I had a sword. Fortunately I punched it with the sword, the point of which crunched through the nose bone and stabbed into the head casing. I yanked back, dragging the legionnaire in with the blade stuck in his brain and dropped him down the flight of stairs. I glanced out the doorway. No one else was there. 

After shutting the door I went down and looked at him. His skin was all blue now, the spit in his open mouth congealed to ice, and the blood in the blade had crystallized. I didn't even bother trying to pull the sword out. I got another one from the cabinet and ran back on deck.

“Well, you killed someone,” I told myself aloud. “You all right with that?”

“It wasn't really a someone,” I replied. “More like a demon. And demons aren't people.”

I thought about that for a bit.

“Demon it is,” I decided. “Any objections?”

I didn't have any. 

I looked around. The other demons were all gone, but their footprints were still visible in the falling snow. They lead out into the white haze.

The white ship was by now so familiar it seemed like home. The thin woods outside were dark and menacing. Childhood fears of dark places always involved monsters and demons for me, and now I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were out there. I stood on the edge of a decision.

“Oh, the hell with it,” I said aloud. I had no intention of putting the time or energy into figuring out what the smart thing to do next was, so I ran to the edge of the ship and leaped off to the riverbank below. I had got to stop talking to myself.

I ran through the snow with a naked blade. My skin felt hot from within so the snow was tiny spots of cold that drifted down from the sky. The snow was thin underfoot, barely a few inches deep. My footsteps faded behind me. 

After a thin copse of trees a powerfully built searcher spotted me, coming back to check on the first one. He bellowed and charged. I sprinted to meet him.

It was easier because he wasn't a man anymore. The demon in him was everything. He swung in a vast overhand motion that cut the air and slashed falling flakes with the frozen edge. I leaned left to let his blade go by, and my own to come up in a whistling arc that caught him in the side, severing skin and muscle to his chest. That stopped him.

I kicked him in the chest and yanked my sword out. Icicles were forming in the cut, sticking red frost to the edge. It came free with a crunch. He tried to swing at my head, but too slow. His strength faded. I chopped his neck in half, and he was frozen by the time his body dropped.

I kept running.

Visibility was only a few few yards. Trees and rocks rushed past me in the dark when the next demon came. His voice came out of the white dark before he did.

This one was shouting too. I wondered, is he calling to someone else? Or is he just yelling out of viciousness? When only ten feet away I slung a rock at him. He dodged. I swung at his chest.

Like I had, he swayed and I missed. His riposte came for my throat, and I parried. The shock of cold when our blades met froze my hand, cementing it to the handle. I kicked him in the leg.

It surprised him. Maybe he was still expecting his long lost armor. Instead his knee buckled but didn't collapse. I caught him in the guts and sank cold, now freezing, steel into him to the hand guard. We were close enough that I blocked his death strike with my shoulder. 

I planted my feet and wrenched, dragging my sword free and tearing ribbons of frozen intestine out with it. The demon stumbled. Again I took his head off at the shoulders.

I put down two more by the time I came to the palisade. My hand had thawed just enough for me to sheath the weapon when the wall of rough hewn logs appeared. They were bound together with ice instead of mortar or nails, perhaps three times my height. I was over in seconds. 

On the other side I fell onto another, sweeping out my sword and down onto his head. Bones shattered instead of cut. He never had time to make a sound. Then I was gone into the low building that held the others. 

Inside was one guard. Behind him Ludus and Cadian were mummified in rope. Carolyn was shackled to the wall at her feet and neck. The guard crossed swords with me briefly, each impact hurt my joints and sent shock waves of frostbite up my arm. I feinted wide and he went for it, taking his weapon far from his body as he attempted to connect again. He wanted to wear me out with cold. Instead my shoulder caught him in the chest. We lurched to the wall. I was too close for him to swing, but I stabbed him through, sinking my sword into the brittle wood at his back. He gurgled and stopped, ice-crusted to the wall behind him. I took his keys.

Unfortunately, I couldn't let go of the weapon. My leather glove was hard as steel. After a moment of useless thrashing I realized I was stuck in place.

Turning to Carolyn, I shrugged and tossed her the keys. She was out in a moment.

“How are-”

“Fine. You? Can you still fight?” she cut me off.

“If I can get away from the wall,” I answered.

She smiled, took my hand, and rubbed it once like a friction burn. The glove suddenly relaxed and feeling rushed back to my fingers.

“Better?”

“Much.”

“Good. Get Cadian. I'll get Ludus.”

By the time he was free Carolyn had unlocked Ludus. Those two sprang to their feet.

“Take the sword,” I offered Cadian, indicating the frozen statue with my head.

“Keep it,” he refused. “You're doing well.”

I shrugged. “Carolyn, can you do that little trick and get it unstuck?” I asked. 

She took two steps, pivoted on her left toe, and yanked her right knee to her shoulder. Then she stomped on the hilt of the blade, splintering the wall and tearing my blade from the frozen guard. Little pieces of him shot in all directions. She brushed off the bits of demon and handed the weapon back to me. 

“That works,” I replied.

Cadian was looking carefully out the door while Ludus picked up a length of chain. In his hands it looked dangerous. So armed he went to the door. 

“All clear?” Carolyn asked. All of us were clustered around the doorway, looking at the dark compound.

“Let's go,” Cadian replied and lead the way out.

The element of surprise was fading if not gone. Four demons met us right outside, coming around the corner. They never stood a chance.

Ludus and Cadian hit them like the wrath of God. Before I could move to help bodies started falling. Carolyn and I ran for the palisade.

I leaped and grabbed a hold five feet up. She climbed me, scurrying up my legs, back, and shoulders while I clung to knots in the logs. Behind us more guards were coming. The two bodyguards were dispatching them with technical ease. I went up, grabbed Carolyn's ass, and shoved her over before I hung back down. 

“Clear!” she yelled. 

Ludus broke free and darted up me the same way she had. He threw the chain up, caught a log tip, and dragged himself over.

“Clear!” he echoed, dropping on the far side.

Cadian was alone, facing five men. He was a symphony composed by a master with his hands and feet. Peering over my shoulder I couldn't even see him strike in the snowfall. Instead I saw sprays of freezing blood that landed on the ground like wide red wings. Demons howled as they died, calling to others.

A whole pack of the guards was rushing out of the larger hall. Cadian dropped his last opponent and took off towards me. I climbed up to grab the dangling chain and extended myself all the way. It felt terribly exposed lying against the wall. Cadian hit the wall without slowing down. He took two running steps up it and caught my foot. 

I heaved. We both rose and then I wrapped my arms about the top. My hands felt like torture. Cadian scaled me and pulled the chain after him, dragging me over as well. We dropped on the other side. Demons leaped at my feet moments too late.

The fall hurt. The rest were all up and ready, looking in either direction when I stood. Carolyn helped me.

The great gate was opening. The creak of ropes and the groan of wood told us the horde was coming out. We fled into the dark.

“The ship?” I asked. I never actually planned any of this. My hopes hadn't even gotten to this point.

Carolyn took over. “The woods first. Run.”

When we came to the cover of brush the snow stopped. I suddenly realized how cold I would be if I had any blood in my adrenaline stream. There was no time for that. Instead we raced across a bed of pine needles, dodging between trees, as the shouts and inarticulate cries from the mass of our pursuers chased us through the forest.

“We're going to make it!” I hoped.

“No, we aren't,” she denied flatly. “Ludus, Cadian, buy time.”

They vanished. One second they were there, one in front and one behind, and then they weren't. Carolyn and I ran on alone.

The White Ship was where we left it. Ice formed in the rigging was holding it fast when we scurried up some cargo netting. Carolyn's hand touched the wheel. The ropes flared with a brilliant light, casting the ice away. I heaved at the capstan. It took ten men to turn it. Now it moved easily at my hand and the anchor chain rose. There were muted shouts from the dark line of trees on the shore. We readied the ship and turned it around to run.

“We can't leave them,” I told her.

“Death first,” she snapped, mad I would even say such a thing. Forever we waited, rocking slightly in the current. I realized I wasn't cold any more. It was either the magic of the ship or hypothermia. 

Suddenly two men broke from the edge of the woods. They were running faster than men, moving like angels. Demons poured from the woods behind them, the hunting pack of hell chasing its prey. 

“Come on,” I muttered through clenched teeth, gripped by worry.

It didn't matter. Those two were already running beyond their limits, covering ground like a hot wind.

“Throw ropes over the aft,” Carolyn ordered.

“The what?”

“The back!”

I did while she started the ship moving. We were beginning to pick up speed when they dove into the icy water, swimming strong for us. As soon as their hands touched the rope I was yanked, straining against their weight. The horde came after. The water froze under their feet, letting them run across the surface.

The two shivering swimmers came over the side, and we collapsed into a heap. Their skin was white and their lips were blue. Again, both of them were up before me, stripping their wet clothes off.

Demons began clawing their way over the side as we ran up the narrow river. I drew my sword, and the three of us did violence upon them fitting the hellish ghasts that animated their bodies.

I was moving slowly. The first demon I could only hold at bay for a few seconds. Then Ludus' man killing hands closed upon him, and he was dead. The horde was slowed by the climb, and my two companions crushed those that gained the deck while I chopped at their heads if they didn't. I stabbed one and realized suddenly I couldn't move. Like a statue I stood while the fight raged about me. Consciousness stayed long enough for me to see the lase of the enemy go over the side, the horde chasing us fall away as we raced up stream. Then I dropped like a stone.

My last thought was surprise. It was hypothermia after all.

I woke up in bed, bundled by covers and hot water bottles. Carolyn sat beside me reading by candlelight. 

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, you. How do you feel?” She put aside her book and touched my face, my head, and my hands.

“Warm and wonderful.”

“Good. I was terribly worried about you.”

“Sorry.”

She laughed and stroked my hair. Satisfied, she smiled and bookmarked her place.

“You had some pretty bad frostbite,” she told me. “The early stages of severe hypothermia.”

“Did you lie naked with me to share body heat?”

“I stuck you in a warm bath,” she replied dryly. 

“Damn.”

“Life is full of tragedy.”

“The others?”

“Also in bed, bundled up. They'll be fine.”

“Even after swimming?”

“Yes.”

“Those guys are monsters,” I observed, deeply impressed.

“See why we brought them?”

“I never doubted you.”

“Good. Don't.”

She touched my face again. I let myself rest with my head in her hands. 

End Chapter 7


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Later, on deck, Cadian congratulated me. He did ask, “Why didn't you bring a gun?”

“I thought guns didn't work on demons.”

“What about a flare gun?” 

I stared blankly at him. “That's ingenious,” I finally concluded.

Cadian shrugged. “Good work anyway.” He nodded and went back to the rigging. I stared after him.

A flare gun, I thought. Next time, remember the flare gun.

Not to get preachy, but I have noticed that the few times I've really lost it over a girl I got psychic powers. By example, when I finally got out of bed I knew that Carolyn wasn't at the ship's helm and by extension was not even on the ship. I pulled on some clothes and stumbled onto the deck. As expected, the steerage was vacant. Surprisingly, both Cadian and Ludus were aboard, doing minor bits of maintenance around the ship. I asked Cadian where our fearless leader was.

“Doing recon,” he answered. 

“Why her and not you?”

“Gives us a bit more time to recuperate from the demons. You did good work with that.”

Then we had the exchange I mentioned previously. When I was alone again I went to the edge of the deck. We were anchored in a tiny pond barely larger than the ship's hull. On all sides was a steep bank that lead to dark green forests of evergreen trees. A rope ladder was dangling over the side, and I let myself down it.

The ship so filled the pool that I could step directly from the ladder to the bank. Ice and snow on the water prevented me from seeing how deep it was, but somehow I doubted I wanted to know. 

“Don't go far,” Cadian warned from above me. I looked up and agreed. He tossed me a sword, the one I'd used against the demons without a word and disappeared back beyond the railing. I belted it on. The weight felt oddly comfortable. With my jacket pulled tight I trudged up the bank and stepped into the woods.

It was warmer in here. The air was silent and still. I walked along on a thick carpet of pine needles, silent as a ghost, peering about in the dim light. Not for the first time I noticed this entire continent seemed dark. Even now in the polar summer, shadows were deep. Initially I made a slow circle of the ship. There was only one small stream that left the pond, a trickle of water no wider than my hand. In the gloom I stepped over it without noticing and only on returning, searching for however the ship had come from the river did I notice it. I considered the stream, perhaps finger deep, and the great keel of the White Ship. That made me feel a little better.

“Good evening, child.”

I looked up and froze. The woods were empty, and the words could have come from a ghost.

“Easy, child. You walked past me twice, and I haven't harmed you.” 

The base of a tree bulged, distended, and grew suddenly. The form rose and separated itself from the ground, shedding shadows like water, until a woman in a cloak of brown and gray stood before me. She remained several feet away and dimly lit, but withdrew her empty hands from her cloak. They were open and relaxed. Still, so well did she blend into the forest that only when she pulled her cowl back and let her dark brown hair loose did I see her well enough to know she was a woman. 

Unless she was a really exceptional transvestite. I had this one client who wanted a glamor shot, and only when he paid me with a check did I realize the truth. I had nearly asked him out. I think I swore off dating for a month after that. True story.

“Good evening, ma'am,” I replied, a bit more at ease. 

“You're here with the Lady Kuranes,” she observed. It wasn't a question. “But she hasn't placed her mark upon you. Odd. Regardless, welcome to the woods.”

“Thank you.” 

She stood still, perhaps waiting, while I stared at her. Neither one of us spoke. If she was waiting for something, she betrayed no hint of impatience when she didn't immediately get it. I had no idea what to say to her. So for a while I smiled politely at her, and she regarded me seriously. 

“I'm Lee, by the way. Lee Harper.”

“You were named by the power of Rhyksus? You're a great child indeed. Please know me as Sylvia. It is the closest you have to my language.”

This was getting stranger and stranger. Every time I thought nothing else could weird me out, something on this trip was happy to prove me wrong. “Thank you, ma'am. I am honored you shared your name with me.” There was a tempting little voice in the back of my head that whispered I should just let go and be as weird as possible back. For added effect, I bowed.

“Named by Rhyksus, you bow to me? I thank you.” And she bowed to me, deeply and more gracefully than I did. Naturally. While bent over at the waist her head suddenly flashed up and sideways. She stared into the gloom and then straightened like a released spring. “The Lady Kuranes. Good luck to you.” 

I looked out where she had and saw nothing. When I turned back, she was gone. That part at least didn't surprise me in the slightest.

Moving quickly and silently on the pin needle carpet, I set off. Carolyn emerged from the gloom walking towards me, moving quickly. I stopped in front of her with a dry look on my face.

“Are these woods inhabited by anything else? Other than possibly demons, I mean. Vampires, elves, pixies?”

“Never met any pixies. Why?”

“I just met had an extremely odd conversation with a woman named Sylvia not a minute ago.” I related the details. “Any ideas?”

“Sylvia?”

“That's what she said was the closest my language had.”

“Green hair? Brown skin?”

“Brown hair, tan skin,” I corrected.

“Hmm. Are you sure? The light can be deceptive,” she probed, doubtfully.

“Carolyn, I'm an artist. I paint for a living. Trust me, I know brown.”

“Very well,” she admitted. “From the way she was speaking I would say elf, but her coloring is all wrong and I don't know of any elves this far north. Possibly a vampire. The cold wouldn't bother her then. Did you get any impression of menace? Hungry neck staring?”

“Nope. Though she did vanish when you were coming.”

“That doesn't make any sense. Since she referred to me as Lady Kuranes and she certainly doesn't sound familiar, I would imagine she would only know of me through Lord Kuranes. But with his reputation, she probably would have just killed you for being associated with me. And she didn't. Dammit.”

“Thanks,” I replied blandly.

Carolyn stared pensively into the woods, while I watched the gears turning inside her head. She broke out of her reverie to ask, “What?”

“I said 'thanks.'”

She sent me a blank stare, but suddenly realization sprang on her. “Oh. Sorry. I just hate mysteries.”

Something about the way she said that made me laugh, and I wanted to pick her up and twirl her around forever. That would undoubtedly have been a bad idea. Instead I just smiled at her and offered her my arm. “May I escort you back your ship, Lady Kuranes?”

Carolyn stared at me like I'd lost my mind.

I held my arm out, seriously, to show I meant it.

“Lee, the dead old goat may very well be under our very feet.”

“He's peacefully sleeping the sleep of the dead in Celephais. Besides, these woods are dark. And treacherous. Strange women abound. My lady should not go unescorted.” I was still acting a little under the influence of that little whispering voice.

Carolyn looked at me very calmly. Then she looked down at my sword, looked back at my face, and shook her head sadly.

“Lee, I think the altitude is getting to your head.”

I grinned like an idiot.

She sighed, took my arm, and we walked back to the ship.

For two days we hid in those woods. Periodically one of us would patrol the outskirts of the small ring of trees that sheltered the ship. Occasionally we saw movement in the distance. The river Rons was within sight, several miles away. Carolyn returned the first evening and said she had made her way almost to its banks. A party of demons had trudged past, going back the way we'd come, and had overlooked her entirely. The second day was quieter. At no point did I meet Silvia again. No one else reported seeing her either.

On the third day she and Ludus went out for an extended reconnoiter of the environs. A few hours later they returned. Carolyn had a pensive, thoughtful expression. She greeted me on the deck with a distracted air. 

“How did it go?” I asked.

“All right.” She turned and made as if to continue past me, but I blocked her way.

“Carolyn, how did it go?”

Her habit of getting so caught up in her own thoughts she ignored me was beginning to get on my nerves. I caught her gaze and held it, non-judgmentally but insistent. 

She smiled, amused. Then she sized me up, and shrugged. “Do you want to see Icstath?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Then get your gear. I'll show you. Cadian! Watch the ship. I'm going to take Lee out to see the mountain.” She tapped me on the chest and smiled. “After all, it's up to you to find a way to climb it.”

I belted on a sword, holstered a pistol, and buttoned up my white and gray outer camouflage. The three of us crept back into the woods and away from the ship.

Ludus was moving easily, by all appearances completely recovered from the difficulties we had had. He moved easily through the cold woods, silent as always, somehow finding a way to breathe so his breath never misted. His expression was blank, like usual.

Carolyn and I crept along behind him. I had my eyes open for the woman only I had seen. Carolyn kept swiveling her head as well, eyes searching the woods. Neither of us spoke.

Soon we came to the edge of the forest, where the trees ended at the top of a steep bluff of broken stone and thin ice. I hadn't left the cover of the woods in my scouting trips, so I took a few minutes to get my bearings. By which I meant I stared, mouth open, at Icstath.

There was no question which mountain it was. That would be absurd. Peaks on all sides towered above me, dwarfing the mountains of Nirmo where I had been raised. Even though they were miles away, the flanks of the basin wall soared above me. A cloud bank huddled against the side of the southern face, and the peaks jutted their craggy heads above it, into the pale blue air. Smaller clouds clung to the tips of them, like wisps of hair on bald men.

Icstath towered above them. Icstath towered above everything. Words cannot convey the sheer, absolute height of that monstrosity of stone. Various strata of clouds clung to it at different levels, negligible in size compared to it. Courdesnse, standing twenty two thousand feet tall, stood at it's side like a tiny child next with his father. Massive shoulders of frosted stone spread out from the central peak, falling away to the other sky scraping mammoths on either side. 

There was a sheer, unbridled and unapologetic power to it. Unquestionably, here was an edifice that stood as the product of eons of time and inconceivable natural forces. Those forces, whether they were attributed to plate tectonics or the will of gods, had bent such effort into creating this giant that it was only fitting that it reached above our world. It made me giddy.

“Icstath, Lee. In all it's glory.”

“Thirty seven thousand, four hundred and fifty three feet of it,” I replied. I spoke the figures absently, trying to keep the giggled of laughter in. It was ridiculous. My mind was refusing to accept what I was seeing, and bits of hilarity escaped me as I tried to come to terms with it. “The basin floor is almost twelve thousand feet from sea level at the foot. It's five miles above us, right now.” 

Ludus had lurched off to investigate something, leaving the two of us alone. Carolyn stood beside me, and she interlaced her fingers in one of my hands. “Yes, I know. It's why you're here.”

“It's, it's perfect. It's God's definition of a mountain. When Morpheus dreams of mountains, we see Icstath. The top mile and a half is a perfect cone,” I was gesturing with my free hand, pointing out features as I talked about them. “The prominences on either side, Yordis and Drum, mark the shoulders. They're like shoulder guards. Yordis is on the south. It rises seven hundred feet from rest of the peak, and marks the southern sweep, the ridge that drops down to meet Courdesnse. It drops to meet Courdesnse, Carolyn. Drops. Drops almost five thousand feet to meet the top of a twenty two. Drum, on the other side, marks the Grand Face.”

My mouth went dry as I said those two words. Dizziness hit me, blood pounded in my ears, and only Carolyn kept me from staggering. I panted for a moment, and suddenly realized this high up there was very little air. 

I pointed at the side where the beautiful cone of Icstath stopped. It seemed like part of the mountain was missing. On the other side the natural terrain of the peak marched down in stately manner to join its lesser companions. But there, the mountain simply stopped.

“That's the Grand Face,” I whispered. “I'm staring at it.”

Carolyn held my hand very tightly while I tried to remember how to think.

“We're going to climb Icstath?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“That is the question you must answer,” she told me. 

“Carolyn, no one's ever climbed this before. Not and lived.”

“I believe they have, but that was a very long time ago. The answers to Kuranes are on that peak, somewhere.”

I stared at it for a while, then turned and looked at her. She said the answers to Kuranes were on that peak. That means I had to climb it. To get the girl, I was going to summit the tallest mountain in the world. “We've got to!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, I know.”

“No, I mean, we've got to!” Somehow, everything was different now. 

Carolyn just looked at me and nodded.

“How?” she asked.

“We take the Corillidar face up, follow that ridge line there. It shouldn't be too steep on the spine. From there we ascend until we get to that horizontal line-thing. Carolyn, what's that horizontal line thing?”

“Battlements.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“The Seventh Legion fortified the peak when they came with Kuranes, a thousand years ago. The demons still hold the peak. Kuranes personal army is blocking our way.”

“That makes it harder,” I admitted.

She pointed out the lines of the fortifications. I hadn't been looking earlier, but now that she drew my attention to them, I could see them crisscrossing the slopes, blocking every path. For a millennium, the dead had entrenched, expanded, and improved their defenses around every route of ascent. They had done a very good job.

“Carolyn, the mountain's defended by an army of demons,” I observed.

“I know.”

“Do we have an army?”

“No.”

“You don't have any armies anywhere?”

“Not so much.”

“What about the bodyguards. Can they fight off an army of demons?”

“No.”

“Carolyn, I'm beginning to see why no one's ever succeeded before.”

“It will be very hard,” she agreed.

“I'm going to need some time to think about this.”

“Don't take too much. We're exposed here, and we may be hunted as we speak.”

I looked at the peak and thought about how many hours it would take for me to figure out a way up that. Then I pulled out my camera.

My camera was one of those professional grade jobs and was without a doubt the most expensive thing I owned. It was capable of taking pictures at excessive levels of detail, perfect for anal retentive image snobs, or people who occasionally needed to blow a picture up eighteen fold so they could stare at the play of light on someone's ear for half an hour, trying to get the shadows just right. Guess which group I fit in. The only reason I could afford it was my father had spent my entire inheritance on it while in the hospital and left it to me after. He had been an incorrigible old fart who'd never understood a damn thing about art, but thought that any profession required the best equipment it offered. To be honest, I think he considered spending money on medical care when he had a terminal disease absurd. After he'd bought me my camera, at some level he no longer needed to worry about money, and devoted the rest of it to fighting his sickness tooth and claw out of shear bloody-minded stubbornness. I would rather he had spent all of the money on his treatment to begin with, but arguing with my father was about as productive as punching myself in the face with a rock. 

And so, with a silent prayer of thanks to dear old Dad, I snapped away before quickly returning the camera to its insulated case. 

“Let's go,” I declared.

 

“What about through there?” Carolyn asked. We were in her cabin, which up until this point had never been used, poring over the images of Icstath I'd taken earlier. She indicated a clear break in the gray line of ramparts that ringed the middle of the mountain. “That break is approximately a mile wide. Even without cover, we should be able to get through during the night.”

I stared a the long white expanse above the gap. “That's an avalanche field. I imagine there were once walls there, but were swept away long ago. We would be going directly up the path of least resistance. It would be suicide. Better to try the spine of Courdesnse. We can run up that, go around Yordis, and from there have an uninterrupted shot at the peak.”

“The spire of Yordis is too good of a watch point for it not to be manned. Besides, the wind comes from the south. Those spires are the only shelter on that side, which means anything living on the southern expanse probably nests there.” 

“Could we evade them? Legionaries and monsters?”

“Very risky. Besides, there's no water which runs there from the Rons. We would have to hike overland from the river, possibly here. We'd be exposed the entire way.” 

“Where exactly does the Rons run?” I asked.

“West. It passes between the Icstath and Gheistgerhen. Gheistgerhen stares across the river to the Grand Face.” Carolyn indicated the hints of white water that emerged in the corner of a few pictures. 

I turned and stared at the pile of gear we would be forced to carry on our backs. Moving quickly would be all but impossible. I mentioned this. “If you don't think we can sneak past the watchers, we have serious problems. Acclimation, while we still can, will slow us too a crawl. We'll never outrun them.”

“What do you mean, 'while we still can?'”

“Icstath is seven miles high at the peak. There's no air up there. We'll need to carry tanks with us.”

Carolyn reached out and took my hand. “Let's say we didn't have to worry about that. Could we do it anyway?”

“Carolyn, I'm worried about air. I like breathing.”

She still had my hand. She raised it to her face, and I looked up into her eyes. “Lee, don't worry about it. You'll be fine.” Her voice was very serious and reassuring.

“Oh.”

“So, how do we do it?” she asked. I thought for a moment she was going to kiss the back of my hand, but she simply released it.

I stared at the maps for a long time. Twice I traced routes up the peak. Each ended in some guarded avenue, and I was forced to discard them. “What about this Seventh Legion? Could they be lying down on the job?”

“The commander of the seventh, under Kuranes, is Lord Varana Ariesque. He's the definition of dependable. Under him the men won't slack in their duties. You've seen the patrols they have out searching, even here.”

“But the mountain is huge,” I murmured. “He can't have the whole thing watched.”

“He's had a long time to prepare. He should know every route up and down it by now.”

“He has had plenty of time,” I agreed. I mulled over that for a while, picking through a side avenue what might let us get close enough for force of arms to carry us through when a truly stupid idea hit me. It was the worst kind of stupid idea, because it was so bad I knew it was stupid even as I basked in it. The shear stupidity of it took my breath away, and I stared at the pictures open-mouthed. Normally angelic music plays in the background when someone has an idea this profound, but my idea was heralded in by the sound of all the choirs of heaven face-planting. 

“What?” Carolyn asked.

“Well, there's always the crazy way,” I replied.

“What's the crazy way?”

“Not so much crazy as stupid. Retarded. Just plain dumb.”

“Lee?”

“We're going to climb the Grand Face. It's the one place Varana probably won't be guarding. The Rons takes us right by it. There should be pools where snow melt collects and those should link to the river. We can set off directly from the ship. All we would need to carry is climbing gear and enough food and water for-” I stopped and realized what I was suggesting. “It's impossible. We'd never be able to lug it all.”

“The climbing gear?”

“The food. Water too. As we get higher our caloric intake is going to double, and double again before we're done. By the time we get to the top we'd be eating four or five times as much a day as we are here. And it would take weeks. Possibly months.”

“Lee, let's suppose we didn't need to worry about food and water either.”

I stared at her blankly. “What?”

“Suppose I can get us around those little problems.”

“Oh,” I repeated. I guess to Carolyn eating, drinking, and breathing were little problems. “Then it's just a matter of climbing the Grand Face.”

“Is that possible? Because that's the question. Can we do it?”

“Well it's three miles tall, the highest cliff face in the world. It's about as big as big gets. And no one's ever succeeded in anything remotely like this before. But, the demons won't be watching.”

“And we wouldn't need to worry about supplies.”

I looked at her, at the pictures, and back at her. “Hell, I'm game. Let's do it.”

 

We sailed up the creek watching the scenery flow by. When I stared off the bow and looked at the stream I could see it was perhaps three feet wide. Directly below my perch was a thick fog that wreathed the hull of the wide, ocean vessel but gave the distinct impression of a wide river. 

“Lee, don't do that,” Carolyn called from the helm.

“Do what?”

“Look down.”

“I can't help it. This should be drawing ten, twenty feet of draft and we're riding up a creek. It's amazing.”

“It's magic, but that's not the point. Every time you look down and try to see why we can't possibly be doing what we're doing the ship has to use more magic to draw a fog to prevent you. That might be visible. We don't want to be noticed.”

“Carolyn, we're sailing a galleon up a creek in the middle of a hillside!” I retorted.

“All the more reason to do it subtly.”

“We have a hundred foot mast! How subtle is that?”

“Not very, so let's not push it!” she snapped back.

I growled, exasperated, and went below.

Eventually the rocking of the ship changed. It became gentler and restrained. We must have anchored. I pulled my things together and went back above decks.

We had anchored in a small pond. There were a reeds that ringed the banks, and the water was very clear. It seemed to be only a few inches deep, but the fog was gone. It must be deep enough, I decided. Cadian and Ludus were gathering equipment on the fore deck. When I considered them I noticed the vast rock wall directly before the ship. Involuntarily my eyes followed it up.

The Grand Face stood before me. In climbing circles we talked about it like a god. Seventeen thousand feet of vertical rock, unmarred and unbroken by gullies or washes. Seventeen thousand feet of solid stone. No first ascent had ever succeeded. A few who tried had survived but only a very few. It was utterly incredible. More than three miles of flat mountain climbed above me, straight up forever. Clouds clustered around it, and I could see the cliff rise above them to be wreathed in more clouds above. 

Thank you, Morpheus, I said to the god. Some might have prayed to Rhys for success, but that would not have been fitting. The Grand Face was my dream. It was perfection. It was the backdrop to my world. Ludus and Cadian were quietly preparing us for the ascent.

Again that night I didn't sleep. Instead I sat on the deck, wrapped in blankets and furs, and stared up at the night sky. It was so full of stars. I had never seen anything like it. Constellations I'd read about in books were plain as the noonday sun, while strange formations of light filled in spaces before had always been dark. There were no clouds, no moon, and only the occasional meteor shooting across the sky moved. 

“I had always wondered if it would come down to this,” Carolyn spoke. I had not noticed her behind me, but it didn't surprise me that she was here. “Us climbing the side, the impossible route to avoid detection and pursuit. Strange that our expedition has come to this.”

After that neither one of us spoke. It was along silence, the type that grew uncomfortable to some. It didn't bother me. For some reason, long silences with Carolyn never bothered me anymore. We both sank into our thoughts as the night passed us by.

“You see,” she explained, “I didn't know whether to hope for it or not. I don't know if it will be as brutal as we think. It could be suicide. But I'm not sure.” She stared into the sky for a long time. I waited. “I remember when you dove off the side and swam to that stone so you could climb it. You smiled at the rock, just before you pulled yourself out of the water. It was the most innocent, pure smile of enjoyment I've seen in years. I wish you could have painted yourself through my eyes. It's a memory I love.”

She paused, and in the dark I smiled at her. I could hear how happy she was. She was smiling when she talked, and I knew she was smiling because she was so happy to be talking to me. It meant the world.

Soon she walked over to me. She wearing only a light jacket as usual, seemingly untouched by the cold. We were on the very roof of the world, but it didn't matter. I took her hand and pulled her down until we sat, side by side, wrapped together by blankets.

“Lee,” she asked. “Do you want to do this? Climb Icstath? Do you really want to? Am I just forcing you into this?”

“Yes. This was the one thing I was born to do, Carolyn. I don't know how you're going to manage food, water, and air, but I don't care. This is destiny, and the gods will provide.”

“Destiny,” she repeated. “The gods.”

I nodded. She could feel me against her cheek, and neither one of us moved for a very long time.

“Then you will meet your fate on Icstath. It is in the hands of the gods.”

“In the hands of the gods,” I agreed.

End Chapter 8


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“We're going straight up,” Carolyn explained. It was the next morning. We had spent most of the night huddled together on the deck. Now she had come forward from the tiller and stood beside me. Without thinking I took her hand, threaded my fingers through hers. “This is the heart of the beast that is the Mons Messina. Monsters, demons, beasts of indescribable natures and terrible danger prowl either side of it. We have no hope. Kuranes the Seventh with half his army may not have succeeded. We must go up the bore.”

She looked up with me. I couldn't tear my eyes away to see her face, but my periphery caught her. She stared at it like an old nemesis.

“Are you ready, Lee?”

“We should have bought more rope.”

“We will have to make do,” she replied. “I will take care of that. Can you do it?”

“If you somehow find a way past the lack of breathable air, no food, no water, murderous cold, and hundred mile an hour winds, maybe.” In daylight the task seemed vastly greater than it had last night. Perhaps that was because I could see what I was talking about.

“Done,” she replied.

I must admit, I like determined women.

“Oh, whatever then. Let's find out.”

She squeezed my fingers again and released me. We walked over to the others.

They had laid everything out very carefully. While I had learned armed and unarmed combat, they had learned how to prepare gear and anything technical I could teach them about the impending ascent. I had never expected this absurdity, of course. Still, everything was lying on the deck for me to inspect, so inspect I did.

While I was prepping everything and Ludus and Carolyn were packing, Cadian emerged with a large, black suitcase. He opened it on the deck and began assembling a strange contraption.

“What's that?” I asked.

“The DR 87. Eighty seven caliber long barreled rifle. Integrated shock absorbers to reduce the recoil, extreme distance scope for accuracy, and stopping power on par with a tank gun.” Cadian lifted a bullet from the case and showed it to me. It was an extremely complicated thing, with flairs and fins and spirally parts. It was also the size of a banana. “Each round is handmade at a cost of more than seven hundred dollars. Effective range, two point eight miles. Built for exactly one purpose.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Dragon hunting?”

“Yes,” he replied with a smile. “It is possible something might take notice of our expedition. This will persuade them not too.”

We started at dawn. 

The first day took forever. There was a crack that ran for several hundred feet straight up before terminating with the layer of rock it followed. From there I clambered up a darker stone that was harder but fractured into square segments. It was trickier, but still not terribly difficult.

The real problem was the interminable endlessness of the ascent. The second pitch went on for three hundred feet. It was easy still, but that drains the strength out of your muscles. In the end I left the ropes hooked in on a sturdy point and had myself lowered to the ship.

“Well?” Carolyn asked. She looked inpatient. The other two were impassive.

I was pleased to notice Cadian had been watching the sky and me through the sniper scope. That made me feel safer.

“That's enough for today,” I told her. “I could do more, but there's no point. There's a nice anchor spot up there, and we can resume in the the morning.”

“How far did you go?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I replied with a smirk. “I barely even started.”

Carolyn shrugged. We worked out a guard roster and turned in for the night.

The next morning we began the climb. It went on, and on, and on. And then it went on some more. After that it went on, and on, and on, and on, until I slept at night without really understanding what I was doing or why. This wasn't the most technical thing I'd ever done. Most of it was pretty simple. But the sheer, inconceivable relentlessness of it became an almost human enemy of ours. I felt like some supremely spiteful creature was bearing its will against me, draining my strength and throwing the incredible absurdity of the scope of our pursuit in my face. It became unpleasantly hard because the challenge wasn't to find a way to drag myself up past the next move. The challenge was to endure the exhaustion brought on by hours upon hours of steady progress. Tension built up in my arms until they screamed, fatigue hurt my brain, and the only way to strike back was keep on clinging to the rock. 

At the end of the day we stopped and harnessed a hanging tent to the cliff. It was gray, camouflaged to match the rock. Anchored against the stone, it seemed secure from the outside. Inside, the floor hung like a hammock. When I climbed in I had a moment of pure terror that it wouldn't hold. Only by exhaustion and will could I make myself release my grip on the guy lines. I sank into the dip in the bottom and forced myself to relax. 

All four of us would sleep in the same pod. Our separate sleeping bags were individually anchored to the outside. While I was warming mine, Carolyn entered with a black metal goblet I'd never seen before. It was brimming with a gray fluid that smelled of earth and the dark places under rocks. She held it out to me with two hands.

“Do not take it, but drink.”

“Uh, okay,” I agreed. I placed my hands outside hers and tilted it to my lips.

I've never had anything like that before or after. It burned my lips like boiling water, filled my mouth until I couldn't breath, and forced its way down my throat of its own volition. There was a primal dominating nature to it that took control of my own motor functions from me, and I didn't know if I drank it or it simply let itself be consumed.

“Gods,” I croaked.

“The blood of the earth,” Carolyn informed me. She offered the cup to Cadian, and I was somewhat pleased to noticed he reacted to it as strongly as I had. Ludus simply drank deeply and grunted.

That night I fell unconscious like I took a brick to the head. My dreams were stranger than anything else I've ever had, mixing powerful sensations of time and movement with incredible perception. Most oddly of all I dreamed that I was a god in my own right, consumed with ancient potency, and yet bound to the earth. I was so sure I could fly if I could only leave the ground. 

I woke an hour before dawn. Before the sun had made it over the mountains, we had broken down the tent, stowed everything in hanging packs to be hauled up behind us, and were ready to begin. The air was thin, and dawn came quickly. Darkness flowed down and away from the sunlight like a tide. As soon as the shadows melted away we climbed.

After that I did not eat or drink for nine days. No one else did either. We barely spoke, communicating in quiet grunts. On the third day I told Cadian to leave the tents secure, instead of bringing them with us. He nodded, glanced up the slope and understood that it would be a day on a vicious rock face. He nodded once, and those were the last words either of us spoke for almost a week. I noticed the reticence to talk in me, and wondered about it, but I didn't care enough to say anything. I think Cadian felt the same. Ludus was unchanged. I didn't know about Carolyn.

Eventually, one afternoon, I stood with my feet in a crack, leaning back away from the mountain with my weight on the belay line. Carolyn was a few feet behind me, waiting. 

“Do you have any water with you?” I asked without preamble. We were at a tricky bit, and I had been trying to figure out an easy route. The sensation of thirst caught me by surprise. 

“Yes,” she replied. Her voice sounded cautious. She passed me a small bottle, and I wet my lips and mouth. I gave it back to her without another word.

Shortly after that, she told me to stop. “Can you anchor yourself there?”

I nodded.

“Good. Come down so you're next to me. Watch this very carefully.”

Carolyn was hunched on an oddly blue tinted section of rock. She licked both her thumbs and then carefully drew a double horizontal line. It curved slightly upwards in the center, but ended about level with where it began. From there she split her hands, careful not to let her skin leave the surface, and looped her lines back to the start. The result was a almond shape, split long ways. Once that was completed, she relicked her fingers and drew a series of short spurs outwards from the center line. 

“Think you could draw that if you had too?” she asked me.

“Certainly.” I shrugged.

“Good,” she judged, and then turned back to the rock. “Open, Eye of Icstath,” she murmured.

The rock did. It parted cleanly along wet streak, stone above and below flexing to unfurl from the center as the eyelids of the stone. They retracted from a round orb, with a dark hole where an iris should be into which no light shone. Carolyn reached into the pupil and withdrew the strange steel chalice she had offered me before. It was again filled with a fluid dark as night, with a smell like caves. 

“Drink again. If you thirst for water, you need a more potent beverage.”

“I can't get hooked on this stuff, can I?” I asked.

“No more so than water. Drink it. It will protect you from the cold, hunger and thirst, and the thinning air. Drink deeply, and climb.”

I thought about food and water, and the faint sensation of cold that seemed remote. I lifted her hands to my lips and drank deeply. It was too late for doubts.

When I recovered from that draught she had replaced the cup and made all marks of its presence disappear. Inside me, the hot beverage burned in my stomach, and I couldn't concentrate on anything but the command she had given me. It was what I wanted to do anyway. I climbed until the last shred of light was gone and would have kept going if the others had not held onto my torso and stopped me. 

 

About seven thousand feet into the ascent we hit a spot of brutal rock. The holds were small and treacherous. Ludus had been leading up to that point, but after struggling for a while with one murderous move he signaled down to me. I joined him. The silencing effects of our diet had worn off, and we could talk now, though we still spoke little. Ludus spoke slightly more, oddly enough. He still wasn't very talkative. 

“It is impossible,” he grunted. “There is nothing to grab.”

“Don't worry about it. Let me see what I can do.”

Well, I concluded silently, you certainly found one SOB of a section. I took a wide detour along an expanse that had all the holds of an plaster wall and found another route. About fifteen feet of that left me back where I started, only a little higher. I anchored, spidered up another dozen feet, and anchored again. It was murder.

“Lee,” Carlyn's voice whispered very softly in my ear. We had hands-free radios for just such an occasion. “Stop moving and hold on very, very tightly.”

I grunted. Her request did not make much sense since I was already clinging to the face so closely it seemed we were spooning. I knotted my fingers on the stone and considered a small notch ahead of me.

There was a crack like thunder. Tremendous suction yanked me free of the mountain. It tore my fingers and me into the open air. There was a moment of weightlessness while I stayed connected to the stone only by my fingertips as I hung almost horizontal out in space. I crashed back into the mountain, bounced once, and and lost my grip to tumble down the side. My belt cinched tight, halting me upside down. I swung and kicked to get back upright. This part of the mountain had only slight holds that resisted my bloody fingers as they tried to find a purchase. I scrambled, kicking furiously, trying to get purchase when a great drop of black blood splattered down on my hand. I froze, and then very carefully looked up.

About twenty feet above my head were the immense jaws of a beast that dwarfed a hippopotamus. It had to weigh a more than a car. The teeth on that thing were longer than my hand. Thick scales covered it's multitude of hands, but left strange foot pads free to cling the stone. The only other place that wasn't heavily armored was the center of its forehead. There was only a bloody hole there.

“What the-” 

It grunted, gurgled, and admitted to itself it was dead. Majestically it tumbled free into the sea of air and descended thousands of feet to the rocky earth below in a stately dive. I think I stopped breathing.

“All clear,” Carolyn said over the radio. This time her voice was normal and nonchalant. “You can keep going.”

“Oh. Good,” I gasped. 

I think I wet myself. I'm not sure. 

“Be careful,” observed Cadian blandly over the radio. “They can be very dangerous.”

They pulled me up to the last anchor point. The passage of the bullet had torn pebbles free from the mountain, creating a space for me to stand. After reassuring myself that the monster had no friends in the area I inspected my fingers tips. They were cut, but the callouses had not been torn off. Some nontoxic epoxy closed the injuries, and I hunched down while I waited for it to set.

“Multiple contacts, six o'clock,” Ludus said calmly over the radio.

“Probably attracted by the noise. Cadian, engage,” Carolyn ordered.

I whirled to try to see what was at six o'clock. Several black specs, perhaps half a dozen, were moving across an open expanse of sky towards us. 

“Oh-” I began.

There was another retort like thunder. A second later one of the specs exploded in a geyser of black that dissipated in the distance. 

“shit?” I belatedly finished.

“Engaging, aye,” Cadian reported. I peered down. He was methodically reloading, saving the spent casings. 

Like a surgeon he blew them out of the air. After the third died the other three wheeled about and scattered, but it did them no good. None made it away.

“Lee, we need to find cover,” Carolyn informed me. “If there's a cave or crevasse, or anything where we can hide, make for that.”

The rock surface was a uniform color here, but off to my right was a black patch. Little bits of white peppered the bottom of the patch like a beard. It was possible water had gotten into a crack in the rock and frozen, breaking free a boulder to leave a cave. 

With Ludus right behind me I began to traverse towards it. I was suddenly very lonely up here and liked the company. Especially the company of someone given to extreme violence on the part of my safety. 

The dark spot was indeed an indention. We approached it from the top and could not accurately make out its depth, but guessed it to be at least three or four feet. Our entire group could huddle in there. I set another anchor point.

“Ludus, go look inside. See if the cave is safe,” Carolyn ordered. She and Cadian were watching from the other camp. If we sheltered here we would actually lose elevation, but there was no help for it. 

Ludus and I switched places, and he lowered himself down to the opening. He disappeared within. 

We waited several intense seconds.

“Well?” demanded Carolyn. “Is it safe?”

“No,” he replied.

Something roared, deep and long, from a throat that was both wide and terrible. Claws scraped stone. An tremendous impact cracked, knocking me about where I stood. I had to dance with the rope to keep my perch.

“Little help!” I called out.

“Coming.” Cadian was already scrambling hand over hand up the line.

There was a series of crashes, crunches, the snap of splintering bone, and another deep roar. This one was even more horrible than the first. Unlike the cry of a beast this managed to convey an articulate fury. Another deep reverberation shook the mountainside. A boulder the size of Carolyn's car shot from the cave mouth like a spat watermelon seed. 

“Now he's pissed it off,” Cadian observed.

I stared down at the dark opening. I couldn't see anything, and the sounds were confused. There were pounding noises, scraping, an inorganic shriek, and suddenly an incredibly human exclamation.

“Ow!” bellowed Ludus over the radio. 

There was another series of concussions, even more violent then before.

“Oh, now it's pissed him off,” Cadian answered himself. He was almost to me, having left the great rifle behind in favor of a stubby machine pistol. 

There was another earthshaking bellow, three violent cracks, and then silence.

The two of us exchanged a look. Cadian had brought a short bit of rope with him, and we tied that off. He bounded down until he was beside the opening. I inverted myself and slithered after him. In unison he came in from the side as my head peaked below the roof.

Ludus stood in the center of a large circular room. He was covered in blood, held a shattered knife in his left hand, and was panting deep furious gulps. I stared at him quietly, waiting for him to say anything.

“I got one,” Ludus concluded at the end of a long silence. 

One was a scaled juggernaut of astounding size, now lying still in the grotto. It's bulk took up most of the open space. Its body was destroyed. Hideous wounds marred its flanks and skull. Splintered bits of teeth and claw dangled from its mouth. One of its eyes was completely removed. The eyeball in question dangled from Ludus's chin. Bits of the optic nerves seemed to be entangled in his teeth.

“You did. You definitely did,” Cadian reassured him.

Ludus considered him, then me, and then the beast. We waited in silence as he chose his words carefully.

“I'm never doing that again,” he concluded. 

Cadian nodded. 

Ludus frowned. His impassive mask was slipping back down, but not before he sneered at the creature one last time and kicked it spitefully in the side. Then he grimaced and sat before he collapsed.

“Carolyn, it's safe,” I reported over the radio.

I righted myself and ascended a moment to consider everything.

These guys are monsters! I thought.

We dumped the body and reclaimed all our ropes. When creatures began to fly around, investigating the noises and smells, we had already removed all traces of our presence. 

The cave was a crack in the mountain, tall and narrow, perhaps five feet wide at the mouth. It twisted to being wide and level with a low ceiling deeper in the mountain. After searching the limits of it with flashlights and finding nothing, we huddled at the back. Several winged beasts flapped about the opening and a couple stuck their snouts in. None of them made a concerted effort to enter. 

 

Among the stones of the next part of our ascent roosted thick bodied black birds. Every day before daylight crept over the distant ridges they hurled themselves from the cliff to catch the air and soar away below us. Sometimes I watched them while I waited for the light. They congregated around the Rons before dispersing to all corners of the basin. There must be food for them among the trees and marshes, but in this barren land I could not imagine what it would be. Larger black shapes sometimes dove among the flocks, scattering them. The bigger birds, those that had sought us after Ludus has killed the cliff beast, lacked their prey, and could only hunt by plunging into the midst of a pack of them while they rested on the ground. They never bothered us on the face.

Carolyn fed me from another chalice of the strange dark mountain's blood. Though I drank and only a small sip at that, it sustained me without even phantom pains of hunger. 

“It's too potent for your body,” Carolyn explained. “It overloads your senses. That's why you have to be careful to only drink a small amount.”

“What is it doing to me?” I asked. It had been three days since I'd sipped the strange brew. It took that long to recover from drinking it to the point I could bring myself to talk. 

“Sustaining you,” she replied. “Like it sustains all of us. It will drive your body onwards, in spite of little food or water. Even air is minor next to the pure motive power of the blood of the earth. Have you noticed the cold?”

“Sometimes,” I told her. “It's hard to remember the feeling of being cold. Sometimes I find myself wondering what that the sensation is when a wind from the peaks cuts across me. Other times I can't remember what cold feels like.”

Carolyn nodded to me. “The cold tries to kill by stopping your body. The earthblood won't let you stop moving. It's the same with air. Your body needs air to keep moving, and you must keep moving, so your body is forced to adapt to the altitude.”

“But why can't I talk?”

“Because the need to keep moving is too strong some times,” she explained. “In someone who isn't used to an elemental drive like this, it overshadows your mind.”

“Does it do the same to you?” I asked. Carolyn had been unusually quiet for the entire climb. 

“Somewhat. But my drives and motivations are old and deep, and the earthblood can do little to affect them. Cadian, you notice, gasps when he drinks like you do.”

I nodded in agreement. “And I can't tell the difference between Ludus unusually quiet and Ludus unusually talkative.”

“We'll all get by,” she reassured me. “We're making good progress after all.”

“We should be,” I told her. “This is the easy part.”

Carolyn blinked. “The easy part?”

“Yeah. We're below the level of most precipitation bearing clouds, so freezing rain or snow can still pit the rock. Water gets into those pits, freezes, and leaves us handholds. When we get higher, we'll pass through the cloud region. There the stone should be ice covered and slick. Beyond that, above where the cutting snow normally falls, the face will be even smoother. Also, the holds will get polished by high winds. It'll get a lot trickier.”

“Will you be able to do it?”

“Don't know.” I replied with a shrug. “No one's ever done it before, but we're here so we may as well keep trying.” 

I looked up the rock face and glanced over it, examining what we would have to pass today. The sun had almost cleared the ridge behind me, throwing light across the great basin. Climbing with the sun at your back was the best was to go. There was a little nubbin of shadow right above my head, and I poked it experimentally. 

“I guess we should get started then. Daylight's wasting.”

We picked a way past the nesting level of the birds. Some small plants grew in notches fertilized with droppings. These were few and far between though. The air was thin up here. 

Later we got the snow storm we were all expecting. We huddled in our pod for two days as winds strained against guy wires as the storm tried to tear us from the cliff. By the end of the first day the shrieking winds had grown so constant I started trying to find a tune in their wailing to divert my attention from being stationary. Oddly enough, it was easy to find. The gusts wailed in simple harmony, and I drifted off to sleep to Icstath's lullaby.

After the weather abated, the Grand Face was white with frost. We waited two hours after dawn, but the sun did little to thaw our way. 

“How long till this melts?” Carolyn asked me. 

“A few days, maybe. Unless we get another one. And at least a day after that for the stone to dry.”

She stared up the cliff impassively. Gears were whirling in her head, and her breathing was slow and regular like a clock. Caught by sudden impulse, I traced a rude image of her in the hoarfrost. It tickled my fingers.

“So three days before we can continue?” she concluded. “That's an awful risk. We're the only thing for a thousand feet that isn't snow white.”

I wasn't really paying attention to her, more concerned with the few lines that managed to convey the impression of her face. The simple sketch was minimalist, but had something of her look in it. When finished I mashed my palm to the rock to sign it and laughed as flurries drifted from my hand.

“Oh, I never said that. Just that it will be a few days before it is dry.” 

I looked over at Carolyn and smirked at her. She raised one eyebrow questioning. I reached up, grabbed an icicle that ran along the stone and pinched it. Squeezing it between two fingers, I rolled my weight up and caught another icicle with my other hand. They ran straight up the stone like rails. Pressing out with my toes and pulling together with my hands, I resumed my ascent. 

“Cold can't hurt us, remember? But you probably don't want to be directly below me unless the earthblood protects you from falling ice. I'll find a belay station and you can come up that way.”

Carolyn said nothing as I spidered up the ice. Soon I wouldn't have been able to hear her if she did. Humming the song of the Norad winds in my head I continued doing what I came here to do, climbing the Grand Face. 

I climbed until I got to long term ice. The stone was pale gray here, and stayed cold enough that the ice would cling to it for weeks. Unlike the mostly cosmetic dusting below, this was thick enough to disguise the texture of the stone beneath, but too thin to use true ice climbing techniques. I reveled in my immunity to the cold. It let me work my fingers into the surface of the ice. Frozen raindrops protruded from the otherwise flat surface, giving me texture. Holding onto almost nothing, I kept going until I ran out of rope.

“How are you guys doing down there?” I asked on the radio. All I heard in reply was static. I tried a number of channels, but couldn't make contact. I looked down.

Vertigo nearly killed me. Far below me another cloud bank met the cliff. All sense of perspective was gone. Suddenly it seemed like I was lying prone on a vast flat plain. I jerked my head back forward, and clenched my hands, clawing for better holds. I panicked and hyperventilated.

The ice didn't have better holds. It required a level of finesse that my fear crazed mind didn't allow. I fingers tore through the ice, sending splintering spiderwebs of cracks out. My fogged brain realized what was happening as the entire side of the cliff disintegrated. Dinner plate sized sheets of frost tumbled from the mountain, including the one I'd been holding onto. 

I had to move. I kicked and pushed against falling shingles of frost, scrambling upwards. It seemed like I was moving through an avalanche. With a great crackling, a huge fragment above me tore loose and slid down, splintering into a million little razors. 

I yanked and jumped. For ten thousand years in my head, I let go of the rock with both hands and both feet. I was completely detached, hoping I'd thrown myself more upwards than out. Before me, the cliff tumbled and thundered down. I hung in space, watching the ice rush past me for so long that I suddenly wondered why I hadn't fallen yet and got bored waiting for the terrible lurch that would precede my final descent. Then I noticed my arms were still swinging in the first windmill. I'd been off the rock for maybe a tenth of a second. I stabbed my hand forward and caught the crack that had held all the plate frost. I got at least two full knuckles of my index finger into it. My body fell and yanked against my shoulder. 

Then everything was silent. Winds caught the falling frost, and sucked it away from the cliff. I hung for a while, trying to get my breathing under control. Every time I exhaled I swung away from the side and bounced back. It was a little nerve wracking.

Eventually I calmed. I set up a hex nut, tied myself off, and waved to everyone below keeping my eyes on the cliff. Suddenly elated that death had missed me, I finished humming the line of the wind song I'd been on before.

Every bit of ice within two hundred feet on my left shrieked and tore free of the mountain. The wind had carried the tune down and along the side, and in that direction was now hundreds of feet of bare mountain. Crackling and tumbling down below, the frozen rain vanished into the clouds and disappeared.

The song, sung by the mountain winds in a storm, had tried to kill me. That realization hit me with tangible force. If there had been an updraft, the music would have been carried above me up the mountain, and then I would have died. The mountain itself was trying to kill me.

The others came up to meet me. Carolyn asked, “What happened? I thought the entire cliff was going to come off at one point.”

“Carolyn, the mountain tried to kill me.”

She blinked. “Explain, please.”

“I got bored during the snowstorm and tried to put it to music. Now I've got that song caught in my head. If I hum it, it causes an avalanche.”

“Stop humming,” she told me seriously.

“Thanks,” I replied acidly. “I'll keep that in mind.”

“It's called a siren song. Icstath might not be trying to kill you, but that song may be from the demon legions of Kuranes, or perhaps simply some other old power that has hid here in the high places of the earth. And perhaps it is Icstath. Take it very seriously. There are things here that do not want to be found. They may attack you through music.”

“Music?” I couldn't really believe her.

“Music is old and powerful. Before there was language, there was music, and a great many things that no longer walk the earth know music as their mother tongue. Be careful, Lee. There are things here that may want you dead.”

“Then why don't they just strike me with lightning?”

“They tore the side of the mountain you were on from the cliff and cast it into air. That's pretty thorough.”

“But I survived.”

“I know.” She winked at me. “But they won't underestimate you again.”

Now that I thought about it, I didn't really think they had underestimated me. That really should have worked.

“Wow,” I understated.

“Try not to worry about it,” Carolyn told me. We were hanging in our harnesses, feet on the cliff with hands free. She put her hand on the back of my neck and massaged it a few times. I looked at her like she was crazy. The tune caught in my head might attempt to murder me and I shouldn't worry about it?

“That's insane,” I concluded.

“The Mons Messina are the Mountains of Madness, Lee. That's what the name means. It's only going to get worse. But in the future, tell me any of these little things. I'll try to deal with them so you can focus on the climb.”

“My brain hurts.”

She patted me on the head. I returned to the mountain.

 

Soon we came to a part I began to think of as the Murder. It was evil, viciously hard. Holds were small and treacherous. Sometimes notches in stone would be just deep enough to hide black ice that crumbled under my fingers. Vast expanses would be smoother than concrete, requiring either long, detours or maddeningly slow, meticulous progress. Before the others would lead occasionally to give me a rest, but now I was always ahead. My fingertips bled and healed and bled again. I went through chalk like water.

Most of the time I worked about fifty to a hundred feet ahead of the others. Too often a route ended in unnatural, glass like smoothness and I would have to downclimb dozens of feet to try to find a new way. As we got higher, the granite inexplicably became laced with loose shale, usually under a thin dusting of snow to conceal the difference in color and texture. The shale crumbled under any weight. It made no sense. 

Unless, of course, someone intentionally laid this out to be the hardest climb possible. Paranoia set it. I began to wonder how I would trap holds if I could. What could be done to make them even more dangerous? Soon I was playing mind games against the rock and thought I must be losing my mind. But the memory of the song stayed with me. Something was trying to stop me.

That being said, I'm one amazingly stubborn idiot. Besides, I certainly couldn't go down. Descending is always a lot harder than going up. We had to be more than a mile along now. 

One day something bit me. I was picking my way along when the rock opened up like a trap door and before I could figure out what was happening, a small mouth with dozens of razors for teeth shot out and lanced my forearm. I jerked back, surprised, and yanked my arm away. 

A snakelike neck extended from a hole in the stone, and the head remained attached to my forearm. The sudden movement weakened my grip, and I slid a foot downward. I couldn't keep a grip with one hand and left five long bloody finger marks on the stone as I slid. I was more than a hundred feet from my last anchor point, searching the weak rock for any pit strong enough to serve. If I fell I'd drop twice that, plus the flex in the rope, and that's only if my last anchor point held, something I wasn't sure about. 

With a hiss I clenched my fingers on the bloody rock, stopped my descent. I twisted my hand around to grab the biter by the neck. I yanked like hell, and most of the thing came free from the hole it had hid in with a tearing of flesh and sinew. I beat it against the rock until it let go and tossed it away behind me. Its hole made an excellent, if disgusting, anchor spot.

The thing had covered its hole with a silk-like trapdoor. Some spiders did that, but reptiles? Only on Icstath, probably. 

“Be careful come up. There are biters in the rock!” I yelled over my shoulder. The radios hadn't worked in days.

“What's a biter?”Carolyn yelled back.

“That thing.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. Put some tension on the rope.”

When Cadian's weight was counterbalancing mine, I leaned away from the rock and checked myself. The teeth marks weren't very wide, but they were pretty deep. Also, the slide had torn all the callouses from my other hand. Muttering to myself I started super gluing my hands back together. My blood looked extremely thick and dark, more purple then red. I wondered if that was an effect of the altitude. Fortunately I wasn't bleeding badly.

We wound up staying there for the evening. Cadian and Ludus bounded around the rock face, hanging by their repelling lines, searching the area for more of the biters. They found dozens. Forewarned, they systematically tore them from their holes and cast the bodies away. The nests they sanitized with fire. I slept deeply in the pod, letting myself heal. Cadian said he would wake me up for my shift at guard duty, but when he did it was morning. 

“Have you been awake all night?” I asked.

“Not really. The three of us traded off,” he shrugged.

“Now I feel guilty. You should let me take my turn.”

“Sure,” he agreed. With that he leaned out the tent and point straight up the rock face. “That's your turn. Get to it.”

Cadian, I was beginning to realize, was a very intelligent man. Because he spoke so little he never said anything dumb. A long time ago he'd said to me, 'A fool and sage say the same thing with their mouthes shut.' But a fool would never think of that. 

I returned to the Murder. It was every bit as fun as I expected. Winged beasts came for us again. We feared to use guns for the noise, but the two bodyguards had several wide-bladed throwing knives. Scaled and feathered creatures fell at me from the skies, and knives took them in the eyes and throat. One simply refused to die until Ludus stuck his arm down its mouth and ripped its brain out. 

We kept climbing.

After a while I lost track of time. Days blurred together. For a while I tried to distinguish the passage of time by elevation, but clouds below us blocked the view of the ground too frequently. Carolyn offered me the black fluid when I needed it, and my sips grew deeper. Icstath got harder as well, but I was learning the rhythm of its attacks. I knew when to look for the mountain's treachery.

Sections of the Grand Face lean out slightly. Some have vast overhangs that extend further than anything should. There were sections of the mountain that jutted so far into empty space that it seemed like I was clinging to a stone ceiling. The shadow of the mountain kept the route was dark. The stone was black, and it was difficult to see the way. 

Everything I've told you about I did again. The storms, the weather, the beasts and of course the maliciously difficult sections of rock all came once more, and then again as I steadily dragged the party up the interminable cliff. At one point the mountain dropped every pretense of subtly as well as a million tons of rock. An avalanche of snow and stone tore free of the mountain directly above us, and it seemed the entire world was crashing down.

I dropped two hundred feet down a belay rope, grabbed a free line and handed Ludus the other end. He understood. The I swan dove off the side as bit of stone buckled above, the precursors to the fall. Ludus played the line through his hands just slow enough that I wasn't in true free fall. I came to one of the overhangs that had been almost impossible before. By memory I backtracked under it, yanked the cord twice, and the others came down after me. Behind them came the wrath of the mountain. 

In the silence as thunderous as the passing landslide, Carolyn asked me, “Lee, have you been singing again?”

I looked up from the rock still tumbling into the clouds below and laughed. “That was not my fault!”

She looked at me suspiciously. She was in her harness linked to a single anchor with her bodyguards, while I was dangling from my hands and feet. I extended my arms until our faces were only inches away and winked at her. “Promise.”

She reached out and caressed my inverted face. If she hadn't I would have leaned in and kissed her right then, the bodyguards watching or not. But instead I rubbed against her hand as she traced the contours of my nose and eyebrow.

“Come, Lee. Let's finish this. I want this to end.”

I climbed out past the lip, and set off again.

 

“How far?” Carolyn asked.

I stood up with my feet against rock, leaning out over nothing. I stared for a while at the stone ahead, noticing different bits of color that wound through the dark gray. It amazed me how many different colors of gray existed with the slab above. For a while it held my gaze.

“Not very. One final pitch should do it.” I looked at the shadow under my feet. It was a little ball of darkness. If it was noon, the sun would be directly over head. Now it was just clearing the mountains at my back. I decided suddenly. “We'll finish this now.”

“Very well,” Carolyn accepted easily. “Cadian, move twenty yards right. Lee, Ludus will follow you.”

“No,” I said very quietly. “He won't. He will stay here with you. I'll do this.”

Carolyn looked at me carefully. She was also hanging off a single rope from her waist to the anchor point. We stood with our heads point out into the air. Sometimes I got vertigo, looking behind me and seeing a flat plane of stone that wandered forever to disappear in the clouds. It was easy to forget which way was up.

“The Grand Face?” she asked.

“I want the last bit of it.”

Carolyn nodded. We exchanged a few bits of equipment. 

“Do you think it will be hard?”

I smiled at her. “Nothing can stop me now.”

Nothing could. I grabbed a final bit of rock, heaved myself forwards, and rolled on the smooth flat stone, polished by a thousand thousand years of ice and snow. Everything was absolutely still. 

To the south of me was a vast open area. It was the half-basin of Icstath, the depression between the errant ridges of the Mons Messina, which wandered about the great northern subcontinent in random patterns. I shifted myself to sit on the lip, let my feet dangle in the open air, and leaned back on my elbows to consider where I had come. 

There was power here. Pure, brutal, unbelievable power of a magnitude I'd always imagined necessary to the natural world but had never seen. Again and again in waves the sudden understanding that titanic forces had come together with relentless purpose to create this edifice. Icstath was an intentional creation of the powers of the earth. It was an artifact that had been completed in a single act of self justifying creation that was so complete in and of itself it didn't need to pay any attention to what came after. Kuranes, long dead king of Phi, and Desian the Terror, Carolyn, Varana with his Seventh Legion, all had come here to simply use bits of this place of power. But Icstath itself didn't care. It had the capacity to, but didn't. Icstath was, like an elemental or god, and that action, being, consumed it. All of it's inconceivable power was caught up in it. I wondered if it was sentient in anyway I could imagine. The doctors and physicians of Celephais would laugh at the thought, but for that reason it didn't surprise me that none of them had ever ascended this point. They wouldn't have the right attitude to do it.

I thought for a while of the mountains of Nirmo. The tallest peak there was about on par with my feet now. Each had been climbed many times. The climbs were still dangerous, and people died trying, but it was a worn, experienced danger. Climbing the greats of Nirmo was like racing motorcycles or leaping out of planes. Many people had done it before you, but there was always a chance you would become a statistic to warn future climbers of the seriousness of the undertaking. Icstath would probably never become that. It's power disrupted the patterns men used to make themselves safe. I wondered if it was itself a chaotic being. 

As an afterthought, I found a crevice and placed an anchor point. I doubled that for safety's sake, and tugged a couple times on the ropes to be sure they were set securely. It would be absurd for one of the climbers behind me to fall after coming this far. Still, I was the only one yet who had achieved any true safety, standing now on solid ground. I felt a ping of fear. I double anchored the ropes, and tapped the radio to signal they could follow. Soon they were with me. I smiled at Carolyn when we were all past the dangerous part and relaxed. 

“Ah, Lee,” she whispered. Her hands played with my hair. “You finished it. The Grand Face. You climbed every bit of it.”

“I know.” I glanced back over the edge and stared down into a rolling white snowstorm. Clouds boiled and frothed, but so far beneath that the air I overlooked was clear. We were standing by the edge, but the past months had cured us of any fear of heights. I thought I was immortal. “It was my life's dream, you know? This one thing I secretly wished I could do. I used to think that if I could be the first person to climb the Grand Face I could have everything.” I glanced back at her. She was still twiddling with a strand of hair behind my ear. 

“Do you feel like your life is complete now?”

I smiled. “Yes, I do.”

“Good,” she replied. “That makes it easier, at least.” And for the first time she kissed me. Her lips were incredibly soft and warm on mine. 

When she pulled back I looked at her face and suddenly saw her as I hadn't since we'd first met. Under her control and strength she was achingly sad. Sadness was leaking out of her, between the fingers of her mind's grasp, and every bit of it fell on me like the rain. 

“Why?” I begged. There were so many questions in that one word I didn't know how to finish. 

Her hand touched the side of my neck then withdrew. She tightened up her mask and said, “Because I played you, Lee, like a drum.”

And then she kicked me in the chest. The shock of it was so hard and I was still so caught up in her face that I didn't even realize what was happening until my body flew over the edge. Time stopped. I had one eternal look at her, leg extended, face regal, flanked by Cadian and Ludus as the white snow behind her rose up to the peak of Mons Icstath. Then I had fallen past the lip and into seventeen thousand feet of open air.

End Chapter 9


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